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Library of Congress, 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 






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V, Z'i .v§ 




LECTURES ON MYSTICISM 



AND 



Nature Worship 



SECOND SERIES 



By C. H. A. BJERREGAARD 



— Cod! Thou art love! I build my faith 

on that. — 
— You must be merged in the Beloved 

to know the beauty of the Beloved. — 



M. R. KENT 

198 CUSTOM HOUSE PLACE, CHICAGO 

1897 



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COREITT & BURNHAM, PRINTERS 
CHICAGO 



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PREFACE 

Most of the following lectures were delivered in Chicago, 
November 28-30, i8g6, but they have been thoroughly revised 
aijd much enlarged for print. 

I wish to express my thanks and gratitude to those friends 
who made it possible for me to go to Chicago. I regret that they 
desire to remain unnamed, but I agree with them, that only by 

SERVICE ARE WE PERFECTED. 

C. H. A. BJERREGAARD. 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/lecturesonmysticOObjer 



CONTENTS 

Preface. — Uplift of Heart and Address. 

First Lecture. — Motto. Pilgrims of the Infinite. The Fourth 
World. Vision of the Sephiroth." The Presence of the Woods. 
The Kabbalistic worlds and forces. Dionysius on how to unite. 

Second Lecture. — Motto. Cry for Freedom. Heart and Soul- 
life. Faith. Jacobi. Appeal for spiritual life. 

Third Lecture. — Motto. Music and Numbers. Idealism. 

Fourth Lecture. — Motto. History in the Heavens. Lawless- 
ness and Occultism. The Universal Ministry. 

Fifth Lecture. — Motto. Universal Ministry. Religion of Jesus. 
Value of the Bible compared to Oriental Philosophy. Yogas. 
Decalogue, Lord's Prayer and Sermon on the Mount. Emblems 
and Symbols. Miss Farmer on Greenacre. 

Sixth Lecture. — Motto. Invocation. The Human. Nature 
worship. Influence of the stars. Freedom. Merged in the 
Beloved. 

Seventh Lecture. ^^— Motto. Invocation. Nature worship. Pine 
trees and cones. Vortex. Cycles and Historical Development. 

Eighth Lecture. — Love. 

Ninth Meeting. — Questions and Remarks. Excursion to Mt. 
Salvat. 

Appendix to Lectures on Nature worship and Love. 

Epilogue. 



UPLIFT OF HEART. 



May that spirit of ours, which is a ray of perfect wisdom, pure 
intellect, and permanetit existence, an inextinguishable light set in 
■mortal bodies, recognize its glory and consciously become united with the 
Self, supremely blest ! Thus shall we beco?ne ^'living souls." 

I trust the flowers that bloomed so recently have not been 
killed by winter frost, and that -your enthusiasm has not bumed 
out! You cannot worship (worth-ship) without fire and you ought 
not lay faded flowers on the eternal altar! 

Do not allow the rudeness of vulgar circumstances to usurp 
the place which belongs to the Vision and do not give way tO' the 
petty details which clamor for the control of your soul! Withdraw 
regularly to the Secret and throw new and fresh sacrificial butter 
on the hearth, that the Log may burn. The log is your body 
and soul in their lower aspects, and it burns only when you 
sacrifice! 

Be not afraid of what you call being too familiar with "The 
Beloved." Let not that temptation destroy the elevation of life 
you have attained. Can there be any too great familiarity between 
the bride and the bridegroom, between the soul and the Divine? 
No! No! "Nearer, nearer, my God, to Thee!" Your Beloved is 
no far off God, who is indifferent and who goes off occasionally 
on a trip to Ethiopia, leaving the world to Vortex. Your Beloved 
is a present God, the God of your heart and kidneys. 

I am my Beloved's, 

And his desire Is toward me. 

The New Age has come out of the ritualistic view, which sup- 
posed, that the Beloved demanded conventional forms as cards 
of admission to his heart, and loved not in fullness of body and 
soul and joy, but by means of symbols. Symbols of those days 
were idols, either in the form of priests or an oblation. There is 
nothing now between the bride and the Beloved. The veil is rent. 
Isis has raised her garment. The night is past and the Sun of Salva- 
tion shines gloriously in the sky. 

The New Age does not speak in emblematic language. The 
breath, the sigh, from a pure heart moves the well of living waters 
and we may all ^drink. 

Eat, O friends; 

Drink, yea, drink abundantly of love! 



The New Age hates the smell of burnt offerings; we stand no 
more in the signs of rams and goats. Zoolatry was in order for 
Israel and Egypt, but not for those who have realized their kin- 
ship to the Divine; not for those who are Sons of God and who 
commune early and late, whose every act is worship, and whose 
hearts are quick with Divine Life. The New Age does not look to a 
temple in Jerusalem or elsewhere. The whole world is our temple 
when we look outside. Our hearts within is our individual temple. 
Man is the temple. There is no outer and inner, no place more 
sacred and pure than another. The world is the garment of the 
Beloved. No High Priest and no door-keeper is needed, the holi- 
ness of instinct guides the bride. 

The New Age keeps every day as a Sabbath-day, needs no 
set times for prayers and does not circumcise one flock and not 
another. The Holy Spirit makes every land a Holy Land and 
all the tribes of man may dwell in it. 

Our God is Human. God, Jehovah is no more a dreadful 
name. Neither Doctors nor Scribes stand guard over it. We have 
seen the Divine face to face. He created us for His glory. 



// is the ground we do not tread upon which supports us. 

Taoist Wisdo?n. 



FIRST LECTURE. 



I do not want to address you by the conventional "Ladies and 
Gentlemen." It is out of place where we meet to "reason to- 
gether" on Eternal Things. 

I address you as Pilgrims of the Infinite, for you are pilgrims; 
I can see that on your faces. You are not pilgrims either from 
or to the Infinite, but you are of the Infinite. From and to indicate 
space and time relations, but in ihe Infinite we recognize neither 
time nor space; there is no to-day and to-morrow; no here and 
no there. Eternity is no farther off from the Mystic, than the 
moment in which he speaks. You are Pilgrims OF the Infinite, 
which indicates a peculiar relationship, one of SAMENESS, one 
.which far surpasses anything ordinary thought can conceive. 

I come to you the second time — for what purpose? To lec- 
ture! No! I come as a Fellow pilgrim to SPEAK to you, to 
address you and call upon you to come to look upon the pictures 
of the Infinite, I have to show. 

I feel the same harmonious condition in this hall as when 
I spoke to you in the Spring. You were then in an attitude of 
peace and rest and the smiles on your faces now, indicate that 
you again are in the Highest. I feel encouraged by your smiles, 
for they prophesy nothing but Good. 

I need all your goodness and your peace, for I shall speak from 
a standpoint that can only be maintained by your support. Re- 
ferring you to this diagram, I shall speak from a standpoint here 
indicated as the Fourth World. 
Matter : Soul : 

Solid. Vegetable. 

Fluent. Animal. 

Gaseous. Human. 

Fourth form. Fourth form. 

Spirit: Fourth form: 

Knowing. First form. 

Willing. Second form. 

Loving. Third form. 

Fourth form. Fourth form. 

The Fourth form can never be entered except in states of 
quietness and peace. For the time being we must absolutely re- 
move all distressing thoughts and perplexities. The Fourth form 
is Heart Life, is Soul Life. 

11 



In the Spring, I gave you numerous definitions of this plane 
by quoting the Mystics. Let me to-day add one by a modern. 
In his "Science of Rehgion" Max Miiller, speaking of this plane as 
a faculty, says: 

"There is in man a faculty which I call simply the faculty 
of apprehending the Infinite, not only in religion, but in all things; 
a power independent of sense and reason, a power in a certain 
sense contradicted by sense and reason, but yet, I suppose, a very 
real power, if we see how it has held its own from the beginning 
of the world, how neither sense nor reason have been able to over- 
come it, while it alone is able to overcome both reason and sense." 

Still another expression is this by Sophie Germain, in Ravais- 
son: Philosophic.) 

"There is within us a profound sense of unity, order, and pro- 
portion, which serves to guide all our judgment. In moral subjects 
we find in it the rule of right; in intellectual, the knowledge of the 
truth; in matters of taste, the tharacter of beauty." 

Those who were not here in the spring I refer to the printed 
lectures and ask them to read up for themselves. We shall not 
have time to go over that ground again. The plane we want to 
enter is the Soul- and Heart-Life. 

You are all perfectly familiar with those first forms, — Matter, 
Spirit and Soul. You all know the three forms of Matter, Solid, 
Fluent and Gaseous, and also those of the Spirit, Knowing and 
Willing and Loving, and also those of the Soul, Vegetable Animal 
and Human. Each one of those has a fourth one, with which 
you are somewhat familiar, although not consciously. You are 
living in it. I will give you an illustration which I think will cover 
the whole ground. Wben you write a letter to a friend or to a 
lover, — ^to somebody in whom you are intensely interested, you 
instinctively throw yourselves into that letter. You may write a 
great many words that in themselves are expressive of something 
and tell their own story, but the one that receives that letter gets, 
alongside of that, another thing: gets that love which you laid on 
the surface of the paper, the Something which was not penned 
in the words and was nowhere located on this or the other line, but 
is wound in with it and exudes froim it. The friend that receives 
the letter reads it 'and sees all the facts and data and declarations 
that are made, and when be or she lays down the letter, then comes 
an influx (or efflux) from that letter, and that is the spiritual in- 
fluence that you put in that letter. You are all aware of this. You 
have been working in the Fourth World. You must not come here 
in an intellectual state. You are not here this morning to get any 
information which is directly to give the much-coveted POWER. 
You sihall get that power, we all are seeking, but you shall get it 
only by devoting yourselves to that Fleart and Soul Life which I 

12 



shall urge upon you and which we, you and I, shall show in these 
meetings. You see, I am addressing myself to the fourfold office, 
as I defined it in the spring; I am taking it for granted that you 
know where you are in colors and that you have tho'se ministries 
developed in you. It is on the fourth plane, the Mystic Life is 
lived. It is not occult but mystical. You will remember I have 
defined the difference between the two, between the attainment 
of power by processes of knowledg"e and the attainment of power, 
and influence by perfect freedom. 

A letter of the kind I have been describing, you cannot write 
unless you are free; that is, unless there are no disturbances be- 
tween the two, the one that is writing and the one that is receiving; 
there must be perfect peace and harmony between the two, or 
you cannot throw this spirit into the letter. You can throw into 
a letter the spirit of fact and criticism, etc., which also lies on the 
surface, but it is of an intellectual character. But this one thing 
that I want to urge, that you have not thought of before, you can 
only produce when you let your love nature have the best of you 
for the time being; you can call it heart-, soul-, or love-life, I do not 
care what you call it, but it is this, the Fourth — I have written 
no name in either of the spheres. You can call it by the name 
of Energy or by any name from eastern or western philosophy, no 
matter. To give a general clue to that whole life, I should say it is 
Fire-life. I can best express it for myself in terms oi Fire. If 
you will examine yourselves, you will no doubt feel and have 
found by observation, that in passing through your lowest states, 
if they have been deeply sensuous, in those sensuous-degrees that 
you would not openly acknowledge, that the Fire life raged 
wildly. It exists in all of the states of Matter, Spirit and Soul, but 
particularly in the fourth form. I call it Fire life, and there is one 
way I can help you to live and see it. Will you all turn toward 
the sun* and bold your hands with the fingers together, as I show 
you, and place them over your eyes so that the sun's rays will not 
destroy the optic nerve. Let the sun shine through your fingers, 
through the transparent part of the fingers. Do this and report 
to me what you have seen and we will make some comparisons. 
Keep your eyes open and see through your hand. Stare directly 
into the burning furnace of the sun. You may consider the sun 
physical, spiritual or otherwise, it is immaterial. Throw your- 
selves into the best mood of heart and soul, or an emotional at- 
titude, and then tell me what you have seen. Let nobody observe 
anyone else; be absolutely unknown to and not recognizing your 
neighbor. I will go out of the Hall for a few minutes. . . . 

Now that you have done this, will those of you who have found 
your positions in the Four, rise. You need not tell us what you 

* The audience turned to the sun, just then shining brightly into the hall. 

13 



saw or perceived. And now the others who have had any distinct 
perceptions will please rise. 

A member: I think some of us do not understand your mean- 
ing. 

Tiie lecturer: I mean those of you who have recognized your 
fourfold office in the spring. Those of you who know where you 
are, either in the Apostolic, Prophetic, Evangelistic or Pastoral 
quality, — those, if they have seen anything, vv^ill please rise. 

(Several members arose.) 

The lecturer: You must not tell anybody what you have seen. 
I will warn you, — if you have seen anything that you could de- 
scribe, then it is worth nothing, and you should experiment over 
again. If it takes a definite form so you can describe it, it is not 
what you want. What you should receive is an influx. You will 
be able to receive it if you will hold your hand as I show you, — 
perhaps you have not understood what I mean, — when you hold 
your hand up and let the sun shine through it, you know how it 
glow^s. Looking through that glowing flesh you shall be able 
to travel up those rays of the sun that enter your hand and you 
can follow those powers that are yours by affinity into those four 
worlds respectivel}/. But neither of those four w^orlds is so 
material that you can describe them in any way. You may de- 
scribe them to yourself, that will be all right, — you must have a 
definite conception; but if you can reduce it to a formula to give 
to another, your vision is not worth anything. How many of those 
who arose had such conception? If any of you had them I 
would say to them, continue those experiments, when the sun is 
beating right straight on your face, particularly at high noon. 
There will come a time sooner or later, and perhaps you have 
already had it now, that you shall see not only yourself in those 
rays, but you shall see visions such as Jacob had, of angels ascending 
and descending, — not angels in bodies with wings, etc., no, you 
shall see powers moving and that in the colors of the four. The 
seeing of all that is not the seeing of the eyes, or the brain, but is 
the seeing of your heart. The heart-life has an intellectual side, 
and that is the side you want to develop; in it is the true mystical 
life, or as I also call it, the personal or the human life; it centers 
there; and that is this fourth world we are so anxious to enter. 
Those of you who are in your fourfold office shall not only find 
your place in the cosmological make-up of the universe, but you 
shall actually see yourselves in the back. I think I have spoken of 
it before. There is a mystery in the way we are made. We are 
always going forward, never going back; we are the ultimates of 
divine rays. When you come into your office you shall be able 
to turn yourself around and see the fiery rays that strike the back 
of your head. Having attained that, you shall have the much- 

14 



coveted power; and the best of it is that you shall have that power 
in a form that will make it harmless to others and beneficial to 
yourself. Many of the other powers you know, attained by breath- 
ing, taking drugs and all those many queer methods, that are 
recommended, are dangerous ; they will sooner or later turn against 
you; but powers attained this way can never turn against you, or be 
injurious or ruinous. It is a source from which you will literally 
draw life, — literall}^ take it up and feed on it, and you shall be able 
to clim.b up over those "golden stairs" that the mystics talk so much 
about; it is not a fable or allegory. The reason for this is that life 
thus descends in an, orderly way; but the powers attained by the 
mere occult methods do not come in an orderly way. You will 
please understand I am not here to attack anybody; when now 
speaking against certain occult practices, I am not having anybody in 
mind whom I am aiming at and attacking either openly or in- 
directly; I am not in conflict with anybody; I 'have come in a peace- 
ful spirit and will not be misunderstood as if I were saying anything 
against anyboidy here. I want to make a distinction between what 
I call ordinary occult methods and the mystical methods. If I 
say anything that sounds hard or critical you will please understand 
that it is done only for the purpose of bringing out by contrast 
the world I wish to lead you into. Our Heart-life, as I said before, 
has features that Oirdinarily are not understood. It is not under- 
stood ordinarily that we can read and write and talk and examine 
things by the heart; it seems so irrational to people, that they 
will oppose it and say they do it with their brain. How can you 
do it with your brain? You are not understanding any more by 
your brain than by your finger-tips. You generally think 
you are doing it through the nerve-centers in your brain; 
but the key to your life is in the heart, not in the brain. 
Tlie brain can be removed and can wither awa}^ and still life goes 
on. All the best work you have done and do do, the love that now 
shines on your faces, is not brain work, it is heart and soul life. 

There is another way in which you may perceive the great 
and glorious life that lies abroad and is everywhere, the life of the 
Fourth Plane. The next time you go into the woods, go into 
some place among the trees where they stand thick enough to 
prevent your seeing the sky on the other side; you can easily find 
such a place, no matter whether among the pines or the leaf trees; 
stand perfectly still, look in among the trees, hold your eyeballs 
still; not exactly staring; look intently but hold your eyeballs still. 
Som^e of you may have to hold your breath in order to hold your 
eyeballs still, but a very little practice will soon enable you to do 
so. In a second- or two, — certainly within a minute, — you shall 
perceive something. You shall perceive the spirit of that wood; 
it will appear before you; the spirit of the wood is living there as 

15 



vigorously and personally as you live, and, your contact with it is 
as real as with any human individual. You understand what I 
mean when I say PERSONAL contact with another human in- 
dividual. The best influences that you receive from your friends, 
or neighbors, or whoever you meet with, or talk to, is not that 
which they say or do, but the personal efflux that comes from them; 
it is that which you perceive and appreciate, feel and love, and is 
that which makes the sympathetic bond between them and your- 
self. Such a presence as you thus perceive in your neighbor, such 
a presence you shall perceive in the woods and all these things 
belong to the sphere of soul-life, heart-life, that I talked of. It 
is a fact that a villain can also throw out an atmosphere and we 
feel his presence, but he is not throwing it out with love, or per- 
fectly; they are "crooked" vibrations those that come from him — 
the others are "straight," — or, as I prefer to say, orderly; they 
have come through a gradual descent, through different degrees 
of this angelic world through which we are connected with the 
Almighty, the Great One, the Great Being, and they were all 
given in the spring lectures ; but it was not said there what the con- 
nection was between those higher orders and yourselves; that I 
left out last spring, but I shall attempt to give it this time. 

Now I will ask for questions. 

A member: In using the word "seeing" or "perceiving" in 
looking into the depths of the woods, was it in the sense of vibra- 
tion? 

The lecturer: I should have defined myself more closely. By 
"seeing," of course, I did not mean merely seeing, as we ordinarily 
understand it, viz., throwing ourselves on an object and examining 
it in the light of either af the three forms as represented on the 
diagram. You know I warned you against that. 

It has been asked again and again. What shall I dO' to enter 
this world, or to stay in it, to live in it? I should give as a general 
rule this formula: "Live in the idea of the thing." Those of you 
who are artists, all those who in any way have been working with 
the plastic powers of life will know what I mean. Suppose you 
were an arohiteot; when planning your house you built it in your 
mind, as you know, and of astral matter. You had the whole house 
fully perfected in all its forms, standing there in your mind, and 
what you did afterward was to reduce that mental house to an 
expression on the paper. When you make a design, reduce your 
idea of the thing, or the arcane, the "schema" of it, to a presenta- 
tion on the paper. If you can enter into the spiritual conception 
of such a presentation and hold the idea in your mind and stay in 
it, you are then in "the idea of it," and in the Fourth World. 

A member: You mean that we should live in our ideals. 

The lecturer: Yes, you may put it in that way. You may 



have some difficulty with the word idea. I am not taking it in 
the sense as meaning merely a notion of the thing, which is the 
ordinary sense of the word; I take it in the good old Platonic 
sense as the type, the plastic form, the model. You are more or 
less familiar with the Platonic idea, I suppose. Now stay in the 
idea of the thing, and you have found the way of the mystic life. 
You have an idea of your friends, and it is really that idea you 
are clinging to and not your friend. So long as that idea is not 
disturbed or polluted, your friendship lasts. These are things 
you are all familiar with but things you do not understand con- 
sciously. Make this a matter of understanding and stay in the 
ideas, then you are mystics and occultists, and there is not a thing 
in existence, all the way from infinite Being to the most minute 
particle, that you are not familiar with. That is all there is to the 
mystic ways of entering things. 

Now please look at this diagram: 



THE FOURFOLD OR FOUR DIMENTIONAL LIFE: 



Matter: 


solid 
fluent 




corresponds to 




gaseous " 
4th form 




Spirit: 


knowing 
willing 
loving 
4th form 




Soul: 


vegetative 
animal 
human 
4th form 




4th form 


Iform 
3 " 

3 " 

4 " 


/ \ 
all fire 

\ / 





Aziah, the world of action- 
^apostles control — 



Yetzirah, the world of formation- 
— prophets reveal — 



Briah, the world of creation- 
— evangelists proclaim- 



Atziloth, the archetypical world- 
— pastors guide — 



17 



My object is to point out the cosmological parallels to the 
psychological states I gave you in the Spring. You all know the 
Kabbalistic terms of the diagram. 

As I said: 

flatter is known as solid, fluent, gaseous, and under a fourth 
form. 

Spirit is known as knowing, willing, loving, and under a fourth 
form. 

Soul is knoAvn as vegetative, animal, human, and under a 
fourth form. 

These fourth forms are of Being, which means Wholeness 
Divinity, etc. To these three existences Matter, Spirit and Soul 
comes also a fourth existence, which also is divided into four forms, 
but their names are not even known to-day. 

To Matter answers the Kabbalistic world Aziah, more par- 
ticularly that unnamed fourth form mentioned above, which ex- 
presses the World of Action. 

To Spirit answers the Kabbalistic world Yetzirah, more par- 
ticularly that unnamed fourth form mentioned above, vrhich ex- 
presses the World of Formation. 

To Soul answers the Kabbalistic w^orld Briah, more par- 
ticularly that unnamed fourth form mentioned above, which ex- 
presses the World of Creation. 

To the fourth existence, also referred to above, and. which is 
also divided into four forms, answers the Kabbalistic archetypical 
world, Atziloth. 

The real sphere of Apostolic activit}- lies in the world of Aziah, 
the World of Action. 

The real sphere of Prophetic activity lies in the world of 
Yetzirah, the World of Formation. 

The real sphere of Evangelistic activity lies in the world of 
Briah, the World of Creation. 

The real sphere of Pastoral activity lies in the world of 
Atziloth, the archetypical world. 

I have alread}^ in the Spring-lectures given you the Dionysian 
hierarchies. Let us now stud}^ them in the light of the four 
worlds and we shall see hoAv wonderfully ever\rthing corresponds 
and we shall learn to do our Avork. You will each for yourself 
understand the myster\^ of your place in the universal man and also 
your work. It is vers^ useful on general principles to compare the 
nine orders of the three hierarchies of Dionysius to the Sephiroth. 
By so doing we shall get a great deal of life wisdom. According 
to the vision of Dionysius, immediately upon the Trinity — Kether — 
come Seraphim, "all flaming and on fire," then Cherubim, "glorious 
beings of light, shining in nature." The Seraphim are "wise lovers" 
and correspond to Binah, Intelligence. The Cherubim are "loving 



wisdoms" and correspond to Chokhmah, Wisdom. We place 
ourselves in communion with the first by "our universal charity" 
and with the second by ''divine wisdorn." The Seraphim and 
Cherubim unite in the Thrones or Seats, the third order of the first 
hierarchy, who themselves also are wise, loving and "kingly;" 
they correspond to Tiphereth, Kingly Beauty. We commune 
with them -by "being just." 

In the second hierarchy we see first Dominations, "an express 
image of the true and archetypal dominion in God;" they corre- 
spond to Geburah, Strength. The next order is Virtues, in which 
are "zeal and care and energy, that all things in God may be 
strongly and manfully valiant in chaste and masculine virtue." 
They correspond to Ghesed, Mercy. With the first we commune 
by "self control;" with the second by "compassion for suffering." 
Dominations and Virtues unite in the Powers, which "exhibit 
in themselves the divine unity, simplicity, power and authority." 
They, too, correspond to Tiphereth, Kingly beauty. We commune 
with the Powers by "resisting temptations." 

The third hierarchy, the last, consists of Princedoms, Arch- 
angels and Angels. The first, "an image of the true and exalted 
principality in God" corresponds to Hod, Splendor. The second, 
"cL certain supreme, wise and virtuous power" corresponds to 
Netzach, victory; the third order. Angels, are "tiding bringers" 
and the ultimate result of all the emanations, hence so beautifully 
corresponding to Yesod, Foundation. As all the Sephiroth unite 
and coalesce in Malkhuth, the Kingdom, so the Plierarchies are a 
Unit. With the Princedoms, we commune by humility, or with 
the Archangels, by "the study of the Divine Law;" with the Angels, 
by obedience. The Sephiroth are not only objective forms of 
Being, they are the very Ground of our individual existence. They 
are "the Prim.ordial or Archetypal Man," the "Heavenly Man," 
in us. In another arrangement you will find this occult teaching 
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20 



Kether, or the Crown, is the head; Chokhmah, Wisdom, is the 
'brain; Binah, Intelhgence, is the heart or the understanding. 
These three form "the head." Chesed, Mercy or Love is the 
right arm. Geburah, Strength, the left arm. Tiphereth, Beauty, 
is the chest. These three form the second triad. Netzach, Firm- 
ness, Victory, is the right leg. Hod, Splendor, is the left leg. 
Yesod, Foundation, is the genital organs. These three form the 
third triad. All nine Sephiroth, or three triads, are harmonized in 
Malkhuth, the Kingdom. Next time I meet you, I hope to be 
able to give you the practical application of this. I have not been 
able to finish the diagrams necessary. I do not know that any- 
body has presented to the world any study in this line, but though 
I stand single with my results and may have made mistakes, I 
shall not hesitate when the time comes, to publish that which I 
here give only in hints. 



21 



The Philosophic vindication of Faith is the proof of the impossi- 
bility of comprehending all things in a reasoned system of knowledge. 

— Fraser's Berkeley, in Philos. Classics. 



23 



SECOND LECTURE. 

I hear throughout creation a cry for freedom. Everywhere 
mankind is sighing and from pole to pole there comes a groan of 
travail from the brute creation. Even inanimate creation voices 
the longings of the superior orders of being. The solemn night 
is mournful and the sea is melancholy; the sighing pine and the 
sobbing wave on the beach cry for redemption ; the tropical forest 
is lonesome and the vast prairies look longingly to the pale moon; 
the majestic mountain rises in mute appeal to heaven, but cannot 
enter, and in the deep mines despair broods over an eternal dark- 
ness. In all these forms of creation, I see the same as I see in 
the deep and lonesome eye of the dog and the horse and the cow; 
they all call for freedom and for liberation. They are chained by 
Necessity and they sigh for the freedom of man's glorious kingdom: 
his ideal self. 

Though man is called to freedom and is free by birthright 
he is nevertheless in bondage. He has hound himself voluntarily 
and he too cries for freedom. How is he to get it? 

In the first place he IS free, I said, hence the first thing 
for him to do is to realize that fact. He must realize that he never 
was anything but saved; that he always was saved; that God is to 
be had for the asking. Next, he must take possession of that 
freedom. 

The realization is no intellectual process, it is mystical rather. 
He must, as I said in the Spring lectures, re-collect himself and 
then in Meditation he will attain Union with God. The attainment 
of Union with God is freedom or realization of Self. 

I shall not now repeat what I said in the Spring. At that time 
I quoted the Mystics. To-day I wnll quote a modern philosopher, 
Jacobi. Chalybseus said of him: "He showed that there is some- 
thing more in our soul than a dead and empty mechanism of logical 
thinking and shadowy representations; he reassured us of a deeper, 
and, as yet, an inviolable, treasure in the human spirit; and, although 
this boon be hidden in the sevenfold veil of Isis, yet has he powerfully 
excited us to the investigation of it, by pointing to the reality of so 
precious a germ." 

This deeper and yet unrealized treasure in the human spirit is 
freedom, freedom realized by the feelings ; not feelings in the common 
vulgar sense as feelings of body, but spiritual perceptions. 

25 



Said Jacobi : "There is light in my heart, but it goes out when- 
ever I attempt to bring it into the understanding. Which is the true 
luminary of these two? That of the understanding, which, though it 
reveals fixed forms, shows behind them only a bottomless gulf? Or 
that of the heart, which points its light promisingly upward, though 
determinate knowledge escapes it? Can the human spirit grasp the 
truth unless it possesses these two luminaries united in one light?" 

In the former address, I emphasized very strongly the heart life 
because I want you to cultivate it. You are top-heavy with knowl- 
edge, with understanding. You need a great deal of ballast, and the 
ballast you need is Heart, Soul, Love-Life. 

You have realized that in the understanding lies imbedded all 
the laws or forms of existence, and you have probably also dis- 
covered that through the understanding we enter into a bottomless 
deep of wisdom and marvels. But you want to acquire an equal reali- 
zation of the heart as the source whence all influx flows, as the bridal 
chamber in which the human ego meets the Divine. Its light is 
dim, but its pov/er is eternal. You cannot define its charms, but you 
are richer than before every time your heart has acted. Your un- 
derstanding leads you out and away from yourself, but your heart 
builds a home and in Home are the gates of heaven. You want to 
realize this before you can attain the much-coveted power, divine 
power. But there is still more to do before you are a perfected man, 
before you can TAKE POSSESSION of Power. You must unite 
Heart and Understanding. The Divine is a Unit. You must be- 
come a Unit. The two must be UNITED, not simply come together 
in union. The human ego does not live as Immerman's Captain. 
This officer had served both Napoleon and the Germans ; from both 
he had received numerous decorations and he had collected a vast 
mass of memorials of his campaigns. After the war, he did not know 
where his sympathies were the strongest, so he fitted up one room in 
his house in which he kept all Napoleonic souvenirs and another in 
which he kept the German mementoes, and lived alternately in the 
one and the other room, being now Napoleonic, now German. The 
human ego cannot live that way. 

The same Jacobi, whom I quoted, also solves the problem he 
propounds. To him immediate and mediate knowledge unite in one, 
in the "deeper, and, as yet inviolable treasure in the human spirit." 
The Mystics call it God in the Ground of the soul, as I told you in 
the Spring. Jacobi understands it to be freedom, and so do I. It is 
to me that Heart and Soul-life which I locate in the Fourth World. 
The key to it is Trust, Faith. 

I cannot speak enough for the Fourth Form ; I cannot bring it 
often enough before you, because you need it. Not only do I speak 
from this standpoint, but I v/ant to be understood to be doing so. 
Much of that which I say will have no meaning if not thus understood. 



I am not speaking- science as now understood. The science I 
care for, and which I study, is that of the heart. I want to know the 
workings of the spirit in me, and so do you. Influx is from above and 
not from below. If we know the laws of influx from the Deity, we 
can begin to acquire power and take possession of our heritage from 
eternity. Modern science — all science — equips man, but does not 
guide him to heaven. It teaches him ebb and flood in the sea, but 
not the currents of his own heart life. It leaves night in his heart. 
Science is reasoning from one (so-called) fact to another, but as we 
never can get that point outside our world which Archimedes asked 
for, and which is necessary for the true science, our reasoning, or our 
science can never be more than merely something very relative, a 
driving round in a circle. The farther we reach in knowledge, the 
farther we come in duality; even into manifoldness, ajnd— farther away 
from the spiritual reality, we desire to attain. The mystic does not 
want cognitions of objects, he wants to transcend the relations of 
subject and object. We want consciousness, but we do not want to 
have consciousness. We want knowledge, but we do not want 
to have knowledge. The two states are diametrically opposite. You 
want to remember this, especially when you retire into the silence. 
I fear that many of you never come there. You bring something 
with you, while the secret is that you shall leave everything behind 
you. You must go out of this world, changing as it is, like the 
clouds, and enter That which it symbolizes. 

There is one truth that has become very clear to me, year by 
year, and that is that I must live and do live by Trust, Faith. It is a 
truth I have not come to by any intellectual reasoning, nor is it a 
result of a lively instinct. I say lively, for an instinct there is, no 
doubt, behind it, but that instinct is not lively. 

It is hard and persistent experience, which has taught me to live 
by Faith, in Trust; and you can easily see that it is so, that we 
must live by faith, when you hear my argument. 

r know nothing of and cannot know the purposes of the Divine. 
I can speculate and in my own wisdom propound wonderful theories. 
I can, under the influence of passionate desire, make myself beHeve 
that the future is mine. In conceit I can dictate to the Divine what 
to do. But all comes to Naught. The wonderful scheme of history 
leaves nations and individuals free to act and to work out their indi- 
vidual purposes to the uttermost, but the Divine Will reaches its 
own purpose after all. And what that is we do not know. I throw 
myself absolutely upon the belief that Everything is for the best. I 
know, that every time I have had my own will on important subjects, 
subjects involving the highest ethical problems, I have chosen the 
wrong thing and.sufifered for it. I know also that Everything that 
has come to me, which ivas given to me, was the only thing worth hav- 
ing, the thing I needed. That which is worth anything to me now, 

27 



that which I prize, that which has been of universal use to me, is a 
gift. Numerous factors in my Hfe, entanglements, and troubles, are 
all of my own choosing, of my own will. Am I therefore wrong in 
giving up my will and saying "Th}^ purposes be fulfilled," a more 
literal meaning of the Lord's prayer: Thy will be done? Do not 
understand that this philosophy has made me a fatalist, or, that I 
am indifferent in acting. Nay! I try to walk cautiously, I look 
up and inquire daily: "Is this it?" I do try to carry^ out the lesson 
of the birds under heaven and the lilies of the fields. I am neither a 
bird, nor a lily, but a man and that means a compound of many ele- 
ments. Being a man, I cannot stand still as the lily does and wait 
for the "early and late rain," for sunshine, etc., but I can acquire the 
stillness of the lily, I can introduce a certain simplicity into my life, 
etc., and that is Trust, Faith. In quietness and peace is our salva- 
tion. "Not by power, or by might, but b}^ my spirit," said the Lord. 

Like yourself, I have my melancholic states in which I cannot 
come to rest with anything in this world. I am so dreadfully alone. 
I long, I yearn for the Universal. I look into all the faces I meet 
for a soul that can satisfy my call. I cry, but hear no response. 
Shall I therefore think myself alone and iling myself into despair? 
Nay, I have learned, like the lily in the Spring, just before budding 
into flower, to know that this melancholy arises in the new life, that 
seeks freedom of expression. I feel powers in my soul, too strong 
for expression, so they revert upon m^e and for the time I suffer. Be 
quiet, like the lily ! Soon you will find your work ! 

Like yourself, I have burned with intense longing to know the 
Truth and be done with the false images of Maya. If I have become 
restless, I have only become entangled in some notion or other, in 
some philosophical system, eastern or western, and — I went away 
from the Truth. Now, when this great longing arises, I close my 
eyes to all ephemeral things and notions. I sweep out everything 
human and by and by a new life dawns upon me. Like the lily, I 
open my chalice to the Sun and I drink from the universal source. 

Like yourself, I sometimes suffer agony when I come to realize 
my ignorance and sin. I call for redemption. Does it come by 
external means? Never! I seem to grow in mud, I draw my 
nourishment from dark earth and I breathe poisonous air. I am 
utterly miserable, for I see no redemption. But the redeemer liveth 
in the soul! After a while I see myself like a lily, whose very exis- 
tence is drawn from the mud and dark earth and whose purit}^ and 
high stalk is made from the carbon of the poisoned air it breathes. 
Then I thank the Great Being, whose manifestation is in opposite 
elements: who makes both light and darkness! I see evil trans- 
formed into good! I see mud, but a lily coming out of it! Then I 
understand that the Great Being is a wise gardener. 

With these experiences, should I not trust? Why will I be 

28 



impatient? Impatience withers the soul more than old a^^e and 
disease. 

Now as to knowledge. What do ive know? Nothing about 
the real nature of things! That which we call knowledge is only 
a result of possiting some one experience as a fact, and then reason- 
ing from that fact. But such knowledge is not knowledge; it is 
only our ideas. But as we never can get beyond such notions, why 
should we be restless and worry? As Ficlite has truly said, "All we 
need to know is God, freedom and immortality," so I believe it is. 
And these three facts we have by immediate consciousness. No 
mediate consciousness has given them to us, nor can it prove them 
after we got them. Let us then rest and trust! The time will come 
when we shall know, if it be so best! 

Let us stay in and with Trust, it is the very door to Divinity. 
There a well opens with rich waters to quench the thirst of the soul. 
The moment you have learned to narrow down your philosophy to 
that state or condition, I call Trust, you will find that the world 
opens up on the other side of existence. The first plane you enter 
is the Fourth World, I have spoken about. 

Can I not prevail upon you to come to Rest? You say you 
want to come to the Universal Consciousness, to Union with God, 
etc. You will come there by Trust. You cannot follow the mystic 
method, so fully described in the Spring, except you trust! You 
cannot enter that Universal Ministry you are called to, except by 
Trust, and you cannot work in it, except in Trust ! 

Will you overcome yourself? 



29 



There is ever a song somewhere, my dear ; 

There is ever a something sings alway ; 
There's the song of the larli when the slties are clear, 

And the song of the thrush when the skies are gray. 
The sunshine showers across tlie grain, 

And the bluebird thrills in the orchard tree ; 
And in and out, when the eaves drip rain, 

The swallows are twittering ceaselessly. 

There is ever a song somewhere, my dear, 

Be the skies above or dark or fair, 
There is ever a song that our hearts may hear — 
There is ever a song somewhere, my dear — 

There is ever a song somewhere ! 

There is ever a song somewhere, my dear. 

In the midnight black or the midday blue ; 
The robin pipes when the sun is here. 

And the cricket chirrups the whole night through. 
The buds may blow and the fruit may grow, 

And the autumn leaves drop crisp and sear ; 
But whether the sun, or the rain, or the snow. 

There is ever a song somewhere, my dear. 

There is ever a song somewhere, my dear, 

Be the skies above or dark or fair. 
There is ever a song that our hearts may hear — 
There is ever a song somewhere, my dear — 

There is ever a song somewhere ! " 



THIRD LECTURE. 



In continuation of the morning lectures I will bring up another 
standpoint from which you can enter the plane of the Fourth 
Dimension. I will give some other material with which to work, so 
that you can see yourself, — and that which I shall now say will be 
useful particularly to those of you who are musical. But I must 
make this confession before I go on with my talk, that I myself am 
not musical, and that vou may hear some curious statements that 
will convince you of my utter incapacity for talking on the subject, 
that I have undertaken to talk upon, but I cannot help it, whatever I 
know of it, little or much, must be stated, and you must take it as it is, 
and I must stand the criticism. The fact is, that if I can convey to 
you the spiritual, or the soul-meaning of numbers, you can hereafter 
use those numbers with moral effect. That is, instead of counting 
dne, two, three, four, etc., — instead of merely counting those num- 
bers, I want you to express the sense they contain; I want you to 
have before your mind not the number concept, but a vision of their 
spiritual content, a certain image which represents that number. 
When you are playing your scale, let moral conceptions run along 
with the scale; it is then inevitable that those who hear the music 
must perceive that life that flows with that music, because you can- 
not now any more play that music as mere mathematics. I am sorry 
that most music is so little more than a mathematical performance. 
Music should not be so, and was not so in the Beginning. It was 
then a moral factor in the human life. 

I must say that I have before presented this subject to musical 
people, and they have agreed with me that there is something in 
it worth studying; a method by which they could not only find 
themselves, but communicate moral truths to those who listen to 
them. There are in New York some musicians who were at Green- 
acre last summer, where I first spoke of it, some who are experi- 
menting and practicing on this line. I came to this thing in the 
year 1864, during the Schleswig-Holstein war, and right outside 
of my native city Fredericia, where is located one of the largest 
estates, in the possession of our family. I went there quite often 
as a scout and spy among the enemy, both in the day and night 
time, and I spent days among the Hungarians who were located 
there. These Hungarians had the habit in the evening of coming 
together in the large court yard, somebody would strike up a tune 

33 



and they would all fall in and sing, sometimes the whole brigade 
of five thousand men, without any conductor. You can readily 
understand what an enormous volume of tune came from those five 
thousand throats, and from those souls, and that it had an over- 
powering effect on a sensitive soul. The Hungarians are perhaps 
the most musical people in the world. Those men were the enemies 
of my country and I was among them to find out what they were 
trying to do, yet those men completely overpowered me and carried 
me along with them. I heard in that music THE HUMAN ELE- 
MENT. As I said this morning, it was not merely the sound of 
those human throats singing a melody, there was something en- 
tirely different there, the human element had so peculiar an effect 
that I, as I told you, an enemy among them, was completely 
carried out of myself, and for the moment forgot myself as a Dane. 
Later in life I have heard it repeatedly. When we in the regiments 
train the men to learn the signals we usually take them out on the 
drill-ground away from the city wdth a corporal and a trumpeter, — 
the trumpeter is there to sound the signal and the corporal to 
attend to order; the trumpeter plays the signal, and the men sing 
it to certain words, which express its meaning. They are usually 
men coming fresh from the fields, country boys, etc., who, as a 
rule, have had no training whatsoever ; they sing whether they have a 
tune in them or not; most of them have no tune whatever, but the 
less tune the more human life there is in it. If you listen to them a 
thousand feet or two off you would hear the human element rather 
than the signal. I have never heard it when near the men, but 
when I went to the other end of the drill-ground and then listened, 
I could hear that peculiar sound, the universal element. These 
signals sung by the men always produced a moral effect upon me; 
I mean a soul-effect. I use "moral" because it is customary to 
speak of that w^hole world I refer to as the moral world, — but as I 
have used the terms heart- and soul-life I will now say it had a 
heart and soul effect. The notes created a peculiar effect and put 
me in certain states w^here I could have done almost anything 
along that line of vibration that came from the sound. When 
another trumpet would be sounded, and another signal w'ould be 
given and the men singing that, another feeling would be created. 
These, my feelings, I could in a certain sense SEE, I could mani- 
fest them before myself. I was under the influence of those 
trumpets in the same way as old cavalry horses are. I don't know 
whether any of you have been on a drill-ground and seen the old 
cavalry or artillery horses answer to the signal. The raw recruit 
cannot control the horse, the horse knows the signal and obeys, and 
they teach the recruit that way; — they always put him on old 
horses. The moment a certain signal is sounded, the horse will 
obey that and cannot possibly do anything else, it never fails. 

34 



This is an exact parallel to what took place in me and what takes 
place in you if you will observe yourself. I am perfectly sure that 
the next time you hear a band going through the streets, if you 
will observe the efifect of the various instruments upon you, you 
can easily single them out. You will find certain peculiar thrills 
going through you with certain peculiar notes. If you next time 
will be on the watch, you will very easily in your own way be able 
to translate the music into some words that express certain feelings. 
That will be what I call the soul effect, and that will bring you 
into this fourth world that I spoke of this morning. 

Now we will go through the scale. 

There is One. I will call that Being. By the One you should 
have a mental picture before yourselves of Being, without any 
characteristics, not the Becoming, but the simple indififerentiated 
Being, the All, the Universal. In sounding the note which in your 
scale would be the One, you will, after a little while, or perhaps 
at once, by that note, convey the idea of Being to those who listen 
to it. One has that effect. That is what it stands for in soul-life. 

One then is Self, the Great All, but Two is duality, the Self in 
diremption, in the double, no more esse, but now existere. Counting 
is nothing in itself; it is a means by which we define relationship, 
discover order, rhythm and harmony, a means by which we reveal 
Being. By counting our scale we reveal Being or show Being in 
relationship. Being revealed. Music is an interpretation of "the 
music within," the revelation in the soul. If your music is merely 
counting, however, it is an "empty thing." It must be personal, 
born of your soul. It must interpret the vibrations or the motions 
of Being through your soul. 

Two means Being in self duplication, viz.: Being out of 
rest, in diremption. Being is no more self centered, but exists as 
the Becoming. An enormous primitive force lies in two; it is 
intensely personal; with it arises egoity and evil; it means dif- 
ferentiation; the Pythagoreans called it audacity. It can express 
disturbance, but it can also create virtue. Two* has been called 
Patience because we Tcnow Patience only by contrast. It has also 
been called Matter because it is the opposite to One. Two has 
also been called Nature, because it is the Becoming (from nascor, to 
be bom); being the Becoming, it is also the key to One, to Being, 
Perhaps the most interesting name given to Two, is Love. Two 
is Love because it is both Being and Becoming; love IS always 
and BECOMES always. 

But One and Two cannot exist apart; they never do. You 
cannot conceive of Two without a connecting member. Father 
and Mother invariably unite in the Child. With Unity and Duality 
is given the Trinity. One and Two belong to one group, are a 
group for themselves, but their very existence is conditioned by 

35 



the first member of the following group 3 and 4. Three is called 
Perfect, for it perfects One and Two; it is called Perfect also be- 
cause it is the full expression for that which lies Beyond. What 
is that which lies beyond? It is the esoteric glory of the Divine. 
The Trinity is the manifested Unity, Three is a divine number 
like One. Four holds the same relation to Three as Two holds 
to One in the first group. One represents Being and Two 
Being in duplication. In the second group, Three represents 
Being in manifestation and Four represents that mani- 
festation as Human. Four, being Fluman, was by the Pythagoreans 
called like man, "the greatest miracle." It is man's figure par 
excellence. It manifests man especially in the Temple, the Square. 
The square is related to the Trinity as its mother. The Trinity 
manifests itself in the temple, the square, like One manifests itself 
in Two. 

The third group consists of Five and Six. Again we have 
the same relationship. Six is related to Five as Four to Three, as 
Two to One, and, Five, Three and One represent, each in their 
group, the same idea. Five is "the union of the four elements with 
Ether," or the square with a dot in the middle, viz.: The Temple 
with the indwelling Divinity. Five is "the hearty one," Cordialis. 
It unites in friendship the even and the odd, this way: 



2 5 » 
369 

Thus Humanity is united around the Divine. Five is the 
center of movement between the Universal and the Individual. 
It is the at-one-er, the creative hand, that molds existence. It 
had therefore a phallic character in the ancient religions. Five is 
really the most interesting number of all and a most extraordinary 
helpful way for a musician on which tO' enter the Fourth World, I 
am talking about in these lectures. 

A member: Perhaps, for that reason it is called the Fifth or 
dominant note. 

The lecturer: I must again confess my ignorance of music 
theory. I did not know that Five is called the dominant note. 
I have come to this knowledge of the numbers by intuition or by 
interior revelation, if you like to call it that way. What you say, con- 
firms my words.. 

Now Six. The Pythagoreans called it "perfection of parts." 
It is "the marriage number," "the form of forms," "the all suffi- 
cient." It is related to Five as Four to Three and Two tO' One. 

You all know Seven as the number of completeness, fullness, 
perfection. It is the "venerable" number, but related not to divine 

36 



perfection alone, but also to Human perfection; it is the sevenfold 
nature of the soul. We are now so far removed from the One, that 
we have the first of this group, Seven and Eight, no longer a pure 
type of Unity, it is Union now, union of the Divine and the Human. 
Hence it is so characteristically called "fullness." 

As Four was the human figure, the temple figure, so is its 
duplication. Eight the same. The Ogdoad is the only "evenly 
even" number within the Decad. As if referring to the temple, 
the Greeks said that "all things are eight," and called it Mother. 

The last group of the Decad is Nine and Ten. Nine bounds 
all the numbers and Ten denotes the Whole Man. You may con- 
tinue to twelve, but the plan of grouping must be the same. The 
first in each group representing something universal, the last some- 
thing particular, individual. 

I am painfully aware of the defectiveness of my presentation. 
The subject is an immense one and my knowledge so limited 
because I am not a musician. But I trust to your indulgence. 
No doubt some of you know more than I do, and I hope that you 
will study the subject and bring it out in complete form. That the 
numbers of the scale are so many various forms or vessels by which 
the spiritual content of the musical sounds can be conveyed, I 
am sure of. Not only shall you be able to enter the Fourth World 
yourself, by means of this method, but you shall be able to educate 
your fellow-man in moral and spiritual life in a manner in which 
education has never been attempted before. 

A member: I believe that this is the theory of Wagner, and 
that all his music was composed accordingly. 

The lecturer: Yes, I believe that is one of the secrets of Wag- 
ner's influence. 

A member: Was he not a mystic? 

The lecturer: Yes, he was a mystic. Through Shopenhauer 
he was connected with the East and there he learned about vibra- 
tions and would naturally apply that to his music. 

That which I want to convey with this, is not so much some- 
thing about Vibrations, but I want to have you see everything as 
Human. Music is the Human, not Mathematics, and I want the 
Human brought out of it and conveyed to man. 

I come to think of Shelley's poem called the Skylark. I 
wish you to read it. It is indeed untrue to nature. No lark be- 
haves as described by Shelley. But it is not Shelley's purpose to 
give a nature-description and you feel it, when you have read the 
poem. You are stirred with the Human, not with Nature. There 
is a power in this poem similar to St. John's description of the 
Heavenly Jerusalem. Both authors are not concerned with the 
description of facts. They are painting pictures with which to con- 
vey the Human. Both poems are delineations of character, states, 

37 



conditions of mind, of that specifically human world, the moral 
world, or, spiritual world, that world, which man directly creates 
by manipulating force. It is our world of art, literature, society, 
history, all that which nature knows nothing of, to which she is 
blind and indifferent. She even lends herself to be manipulated 
by man for the upbuilding of his world, but she takes no interest 
in the work and is as ready to destroy it as to furnish material 
for it. 

We also call that world, the world of freedom, because it is the 
sphere where man, free from the trammels of an external order, 
develops his own inner world; where he takes the subject matter 
out of himself, and the form as well. It is the world by means 
of which man sees himself outside himself and thus realizes himself, 
something he could not do but for this world. We of the New 
Age live in this world. 

You may call this Idealism. It is Idealism. As soon as I 
have seen these lectures in print, I shall write you a book on Ideal- 
ism, its doctrine and history. Such a book is very much needed 
for the kernel of all advanced teachings of to-day is idealistic; yet 
how many know what Idealism really is? 

Before I conclude, let us be idealistic for a while. Let me 
tell you a story, which is thoroughly romantic, but nevertheless 
the veriest truth. 

I say nothing against the various methods proposed by the 
various teachers, methods by which we are to rise out of ourselves. 
These methods may be those of the Bhagavad Gita or other 
Eastern Holy Books; they may be those of the Stoic, the Epicurean, 
the Christian, etc., they are no doubt excellent methods, but they 
are only methods; in themselves they are nothing. The jewel is in 
the lotus, but the lotus itself is only a means. 

But if you follow the last method of the young girl in this 
story, I will now tell, you shall have a method, which is not only 
a method, but which in itself is much more, for it is the life of the 
Fourth World. The word, that contains all this is Consecration. 
Consecration is not only a Way, but also the Life. 

The story is drawn from the Danish philosopher, R. Nielsen, 
but largely modified by me. 

We see a young maiden. A certain stamp of nobility shines 
on her brow and her bearing is lady-like — still she is only an im- 
mature girl. In her present mood she appears dejected. She is 
a servant in a fine house, but she does not want to be a servant; 
she feels she is freeborn. She had once begun a course of training 
designed to give her "a position in life," but now — now that had 
come to an abrupt end, and she seemed to be far from "a position 
in life"^ — she is only a servant, a maid to the lady's maid of the 
house. 

38 



She was goodhearted by nature, kind to the children, and her 
general deportment was good. She was liked in the house, but 
nevertheless she was never happy, for she felt lonesome — she felt she 
stood alone in the world. She fell into the habit of going to her 
own room to sit down to cry and to pity herself. 

One Sunday afternoon, in one of those odd hours which we all 
know so well from their intense wearisome nature, she almost broke 
down. She had just finished a letter to her mother — her poor mother, 
whom circumstances had brought to the poorhouse. She had not 
dared to speak about her forlorn life, for she feared to hurt her 
mother's feelings, and was too good to add to her sufferings. Her 
own pent up feelings nearly broke her heart. But at last she found 
relief in the hot tears of agony, and she burst out in prayers for help 
to understand the meaning of this -sorrow. 

She did find relief and help. How long she cried she did not 
know, but all of a sudden she perceived an old man standing at the 
door. She knew him it seemed. She forgot to ask him how long 
he had been waiting and what he wanted. Those questions did not 
seem to be needed, at least they did not suggest themselves. The 
two engaged in conversation at once, like old friends, knowing each 
other's afifairs. Really they were more than friends. The old man 
knew all the secrets of the maiden's heart— she had no need of ex- 
plaining anything to him. He was herself (her Self). Still, upon the 
direct questions as to why she was weeping, she tried to evade him 
and could not bring herself at once to a clear statement. But he 
knew how to talk, and after a little while she confided in him that she 
wanted to learn (the) Language, Music and Drawing. If she could 
learn these three arts she could get a "better place" she thought. 

"Ah!" said he, "you want to learn (the) Language, Music and 
Drawing. Very well! You need cry no more; I am an old *peda- 
gogue ; I will teach you if you be attentive." 

She promised to be attentive! And so the old man began to 
speak the Language. He spoke the Word: calm, still, intense and 
affectionate. He spoke and it penetrated to the soul. In his Word 
she heard all her own thoughts and emotions. Every unclear long- 
ing found its expression. 

She learned (the) Language at once. 

"Now, my child," continued the pedagogue, "What is Music?" 
His expression and intonation were such that she herself could 
answer the question most readily — the very cords of her heart 
vibrated and resounded to his question. The question itself con- 
tained the answer. The harmony of existence thrilled her through 
and through. The old friend smiled, raised his finger and said, "This 

* The highest and most exalted title which the Talmudists hestowed 
in their most poetical flights upon God himself was that of "Pedagogue 
of Man."— Em. Deutsch. 

39 



is Drawing!" Before her vision the world's idea was revealed. 
She saw and beheld the ideal forms of life as they passed before her 
vision. She saw the root and meaning of her own being and the 
possibilities of all her dreams. 

Time passed rapidl}^ away. The midnight hour had come and 
gone before the guest left her. Before he departed, he admonished 
her to be silent and preserve her heart pure; to avoid having any- 
thing to do with things not pertaining to her life; to be obedient to 
superiors; and in thought to dwell much upon what he had told her 
and shown her. He added that if she followed his admonishings she 
should see him again at some other time. 

She made the promise and he departed as suddenly as he had 
come. 

But the young maiden soon fell back to her dreamy and dissatis- 
fied states. The teacher seemed to have taken all that bliss away 
with him which he brought. She appeared to be more lonesome 
than ever, and, what was worse, she could not restrain her feelings 
and ill humor, but became critical and troublesome. She meddled 
in everybody's afifairs and at times refused to obey orders. At 
last she was called before the lady of the house and reprimanded, and 
told that she would have to leave the house if she did not change her 
conduct. She was ordered to her room to think it over all by 
herself (her Self). 

When she came upstairs she found her teacher and friend there 
awaiting her. The scolding she had received had made her bitter, 
and she burst out before her friend, upbraiding him as the cause 
of all her trouble. He had turned her head, the housekeeper had 
said. If he meant her welfare, he must at once teach her the art 
of being governess, that she could find another place; this house 
she would have to leave. If he could not do that he might just as 
well leave her at once and take all his wisdom with him^ — it would be 
of no practical use to her. 

"Poor, vain child!" began the pedagogue, the teacher of The 
Personal, "you have forgotten your promise. It is not my gift that 
ruins you, it is your unfaithful mind and heart. You have not been 
obedient and you have angered your superiors. You must repent 
of that by asking forgiveness from your lady and by changing your 
conduct entirely. If you do not do that I will leave you, never more 
to return. Obedience and humility are necessary to learn my wis- 
dom. I shall be sorry to leave you, for then you will be alone in- 
deed !" 

The young and pure heart bent down before the kind warning 
voice. She cried tears such as she never before cried. She begged 
his forgiveness and that of the lady of the house ; she begged every- 
body to forgive her — and she humbled herself. 

Everything now came all right. The pedagogue and best friend 

40 



came and went. Nobody noticed anything except the radical change 
that had taken place. Silently and in quiet she gained possession 
of her soul; and more than once the lady of the house was heard to 
remark to her husband: "What a sweet soul!" — "Wonderfully 
gifted!" 

Here we might terminate our story. It is of no consequence 
what becam,e of her afterwards. The main thing is that she is happy 
and in possession of her soul, and that the old pedagogue takes care 
of her. 

Thus far we have been describing the life of a young girl as 
represented by the pictures in a book that lies before us. There is 
still one more picture in the book, and the children declare that it 
belongs to the story. Evidently the children only look over all the 
other pictures for the sake of coming to this one, the last of all — but 
the brightest. It represents a wedding feast, and the bride's features 
are so much like those of our maiden as we have seen her on the 
other pictures that we really believe the children. She has been 
married, and now there is feast in the castle and all the great people 
of the kingdom are there. " 

But, where is the teacher? Ah, he sits next to her! He is as 
happy as she is — perhaps more so ! He has been married too. 

^ That has been a soul-marriage indeed! But, if this young being 
had not been obedient, if she had thought it "too much" to bear the 
burden of humble submission, there would have been no wedding. 

This young girl is an exact copy of thousands in life. Her 
actions we see daily all around us, her actions up to the time she 
upbraids the teacher. But we rarely see the consecrated woman 
who follows. Will you follow her example in this last respect? 



41 



Whom have I in the Heavens but Thee; and there is none upon the 
Earth whom I desire besides Thee. Ps. LXXIII. 23. 

Lift up your eyes to the Heavens, and look upon the Earth beneath. 

Isa. LI. 6. 
Sing, O ye Heavens, for the Lord hath done it. 

Isa. XLIV. 23. 
Night unto Night showeth knowledge. Fs. XIX. 2. 

The Moon and the Stars rule by night. Ps. CXXXVI. g. 

Even the Night shall be light unto me. Ps. CXXXIX. 11. 

Arise, let us go by night. Jer. VI. 5. 

/ saw by night. ^ Zech. I. 8. 



43 



FOURTH LECTURE. 



The leading' thought in all mythologies is the conflict of Good 
with Evil, or with the demonic powers. With singular persistency 
this thought comes to the surface in all leg^ends. The ancients must 
have had a good reason for this. With some of them this conflict lies 
in ag'es past the existence of this universe ; with others this conflict is 
a natural element and law of the present universe. In either case the 
subject is one of importance. 

I have chosen this subject for an introduction to my address on 
the "Universal Ministry," in which you must serve, because the 
demonic powers, especially in our day, have gained control where 
they ought not to have any influenccj and it has become your duty to 
fight them. Among- the multitudinous constellations a few stand out 
very prominently and have by the Chaldeans and Egyptians been 
called "the signs of the times." If you will look on this sketch of the 
heavens you readily see these constellations and how they are ar- 
ranged on both sides of the Milky Way. You can find them very 
easy in the sky, if you place yourself facing the North star. 

Let me say that in the heavens you see, every time you look up, 
the greatest book of revelations. In indelible ink the figures have 
been traced there by antiquity — can I say by nature? No scribe can 
copy them wrongly and no book can be loist. That Bible is inspired 
indeed; it is written by the hand of God; its word is sacred. Those 
heavenly scriptures are given for your instruction, and they are 
profitable for teaching, "that the man of God may be complete." 

Around the constellations, I have indicated here merely by their 
names, you will find on your map a series of demonic powers in the 
form of dragons and serpents. There are the Northern Dragon, 
the World serpent and the Hydra; they represent, according to the 
most ancient traditions, the demonic powers in existence. From all 
sides they surround and try to crush the universe. While the 
ancients so forcibly taught this lesson, they also acknowledged that 
these very powers represented the mystical powers of support. The 
apparent contradiction is easil}^ solved: The demonic powers were 
cosmic forces of an earlier existence, either "fallen from their estate" 
or dethroned for some other reason. Whether fallen or dethroned, 
they remain cosmic forces, though no longer beneficent forces, but 
now more or less malignant, not perhaps malignant by nature, but 

45 



OPHIOCHUS 
SCRPENTARIUS 



CEPKEUS 




ANOftOMEOA 



ORION BULL 



46 



antagonistic because progressive eons left them behind. As it was 
in those days so it is now. The forces we contend against are antag- 
onistic because they are not in order, or line, with the present 
progress. In the following, I understand by the word demonic all 
antagonistic powers, forces or circumstances, be they represented 
by man or not. 

To the constellations of the Dragon, Serpent and Hydra come 
by natural characteristics Scorpio, and Sagittarius, who aims at the 
heel of Ophiochus. In connection with Scorpio we see the Wolf, 
the Centaur, Cerberus and the overthrown Altar. Everywhere in 
the heavens we see conflict. The central figure is Ophiochus in the 
southern Summer sky. He is the World-spirit in ONE figure, but 
the gradual development of the World-spirit is represented in 
THREE figures leading up to him. The three are Orion, Perseus 
and Hercules, 

Orion is the most glorious of the constellations on the Northern 
winter sky. You all know him, the valiant hero, fighting the rag- 
ing Taurus, followed by Cetus, the sea monster. He is accompanied 
by two dogs, symbols of faithfulness ; Sirius, the brightest fixed star, 
in front. Orion is not the biggest, but the best known among the 
star heroes. When he sets, Ophiochus, the "greatest among the 
^eatest," rises. Orion occupies the same position as Odin accom- 
panied by Thor occupies among the Asas. Both represent the light- 
world, the cosmic manifestation of the Eternal Intelligence. 

Orion was a son of Neptune and a giant and a mightly hunter, 
and therefore in favor with Diana, who loved him. Her brother, 
Apollo, was displeased at this and often chid her, to no purpose, how- 
ever. One day Apollo observed Orion wading through a lake with 
his head only above water. He called Diana's attention to the black 
-object and declared she could not hit it. Diana aimed and killed 
Orion. Bewailing her fatal error with many tears she placed him 
among the stars, where he now follows the chase across the heavens. 
Sirius follows him and the Pleiades fly before him. At dawn he sinks 
toward the waters of his father Neptune, but through the winter 
night he is the giant of the heavens, who fights Taurus, the ferocious 
Surtur of Norse Mythology or uncontrolled fire, natural necessity. 

Orion is human intelligence who fights unrestrained passions, 
the blind nature powers, the wild and ferocious demonic forces. ' By 
intelligence these are controlled — during the hours of night. When 
day arises with the heavenly orb, the Sun, human intelligence 
pales and sinks into the sea of the infinite. When summer 
rules, the "greatest of the great," the Serpent-bearer or Serpent-de- 
stroyer, rules the "northern heavens and Orion is then visible only 
in the southern hemisphere. In our present day conflict, human in- 
telligence is the hero that subdues the unruly demonic passions. 

47 



When the New Day comes, human intellig-ence will take a secondary 
position and the Solar Hero, the Great God, will rule. 

Perseus claims our attention next. 

When our eye rises from the sinking Orion, we see the beautiful 
Capella, a star of first magnitude, which never gO'CS entirely below the 
horizon. It shines in Auriga. Right over it we see Perseus and 
Andromeda. 

You know the myth. Andromeda has been sacrificed, like so 
many women are, to appease a monster who ravaged her father 
Orpheus's country. Perseus, the Gorgon-slayer, saw her chained 
to the rock of sacrifice and sought to find the reason of her disgrace. 
At first her modesty kept her silent, but finally he learned the true 
cause. He killed the monster and married Andromieda. In the 
northern sky, the sea-monster is the northern fish in the zodiac. 
Cepheus and Cassiopeia, her mother, are seen right above Perseus. 
The chained princess is the Beauty of the World bound in un- 
freedom and by grossness. Eternal reason under the form of the 
imaginative art-impulse liberates the beauty. The true poet and 
artist is the one who liberates the chained heavenly beauty by de- 
scending to the confines of night and in the depths of the soul slays 
those passion-monsters who hold possession at the springs of life, 
and who rise from the abyssal sea claiming the daughters of men 
as their legitimate prey. The true minister is he who' bears the armor 
of truth and beauty and who "in stern tranquillity of wrath" awaits 
the monster and fearlessly plunges his sword of righteousness into it. 

There is no more wonderful picture in the heavens than that of 
the chained Andromeda. In that myth the ancients represented the 
very riddle of existence: Why is man chained to this existence? 
Why the dissonance? Why does every age show so much evil 
and why must we from time to time rise Perseus-like to liberate our 
better nature? You, too, must go out to kill tbe monster, that mon- 
ster, who in our day threatens the life of our daughter Andromeda, 
the truly Human. That is the ministry I send you to. You cannot 
serve your ministry in your own strength, you need tbe Pegasus, the 
head of Medusa, and the training of Perseus. When you kill the 
monster you will hear the cry, "the great Pan is dead." 

In Hercules we recognize the giant will, the third psychological 
form of divine manifestation, also one of tbe heavenly heroes and 
champions of freedom. Earthly Hercules is brutal force, unrefined 
and coarse, almost self-destructive, but the celestial Hercules is moral 
will, purified endeavor. Like Orion and Perseus, be is one of the 
greatest heroes in the World-conflict, but unlike these two be is a 
tragic hero. Though be stands upon the head o^ the dragon, he 
nevertheless falls, overcome by his own strength. Tbe falling herO' 
turns in his fall his head toward Ophiochus and learns, like Balder 
on the funeral pyre, that he shall rise though he falls. Our will only 

48 



conquers when it ceases to be OUR will. In your ministry you must 
not go forth in your own strength, but must let the warrior in you do 
the fighting. 

in these three World groups, Orion, Perseus and Hercules, 
we have the Platonic trinity of the true, the beautiful and the good. 
Marvelous and beautiful as they are in their significance, they are 
nevertheless., defective. They are earthbound forces and ideas. 
Neither the true, the beautiful, nor the good can liberate man. 
Neither art nor philosophy brings us freedom. And the ancient 
world knew it. 

In Ophiochus antiquity has expressed its deepest insight; has 
shown that the Divine is incarnated and holds the serpent-demon 
in its hand, ready to strangle him when the time comes. 

Like the Divine, the constellation Ophiochus is so large that 
but few see it. The Equator goes through the Serpent-bearer's 
breast and the lower half of his body is never seen on the northern 
hemisphere; so only half of the Divine is visible to either of the 
hemispheres, the upper or the lower, the open and the occult. The 
Greek saw in Ophiochus the great healer and savior, Esculapius, 
and rightly. Men's dividing lines pierce the breast of Love. The 
physician comes without arms, trusting tO' his righteous cause. 
Ophiochus has no weapons; he- steps upon Scorpio and takes no 
notice of Cerberus; still he grapples with the great Serpent and with 
his hand alone controls it. Relying solely upon iiis inherent 
divinity and superior virtue he stands erect in the conflict, he looks 
boldly forward to the End of the Age, to Spica, the ripened corn 
in the hand of the virgin Seraph, the celestial Astrea, and toward 
the love world of the Twins. 

I want you to study carefully and often this great picture-book 
open in the heavens. It is the Bible which contains the laws, the 
promises and the prophecies of the Universal Ministry. 



I see one form of modern occultism, which is lawlessness, and 
a very dangerous one at that. 

We hear of organizations being formed, 'here and abroad, who 
stand in with each other and who cooperate to influence the course 
of history. What right have they to do so? Are they Providence? 
Are they the executives of the Great Being? Who appointed 
them? How do they know that they are in possession of the truth 
and that they influence humanity in the really good? How dan- 
gerous is not such a self-appointed Providence? These people are 
lawless in my opinion. They are seeking their own will; they are 

49 



anti-Christian, viz., anti the spiritual life, which seeks not its ovvn^ 
but inquires from moment to moment what is the Divine Will. 

Do not be led astray by these movements. Many societies 
are now organized in which you involuntarily serve such lawless 
purposes, if you are a member. 

Do not join any secret society. Their day is past. We have 
no use for them in this nineteenth century, which is the age of 
democracy, the age of the people. In the past, secret societies were 
of use when man could not think freely nor be allowed to express 
himself freely if he had any thought. But we are beyond all that 
now. There is nothing in the whole range of human knowledge 
that ought not be public property, if it be beneficent. If it is 
dangerous it is criminal and ought not to be conveyed even secretly. 

You want to work against all these forms of lawlessness. 

The most emphatic way you can counteract the modern law- 
lessness and at the same time a way in which you can come to 
exert all the secret influence you may desire, consists in entering 
upon that glorious office to which you and all spiritual people are 
called, whether brought up on Bible food or not. In quoting the 
following passage from Peter's letters, I want you to bring it in 
connection with that which I shall speak of in my next lecture, the 
excellence of Biblical philosophy. 

Peter, speaking to all, called in the Christ principle, to the 
glory of the great Being, calls them "an elect race, a royal priest- 
hood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, that ye 
may show forth the excellencies of Him, who called you out of 
darkness into His marvelous light." 

You, all of you, called in the Christ principle, are in "that 
royal priesthood" through which the divine influx comes to the 
world. In your conversations with God you have realized that. 
Have you not? Your priesthood is to be made active under the 
present circumstances of your life, be they at home, in the kitchen, 
in the s-hop or before the bar. Your character, such as that is 
defined by color, is to be made an influence there and at once. Xo 
ceremonies are needed. No initiations take place. Arise and look 
into the Divine Face and you wdll receive a kiss of love. Let that 
be the initiation. If you be called from a narrow^er sphere to a 
larger, remember it means greater duties and that you are not 
prepared for the larger sphere, till you have serv^ed your apprentice- 
ship at home. 

Let the world feel an influence of holiness come to it from 
your realization of being a "holy nation;" to be holy means to be 
set apart for special uses! 

Let the w^orld understand that you belong to a race, elect 

"to show the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness. 

Those who are elected do not mingle with the lawless. How could 

50 



they return to darkness, which they have just come out of; their 
election, viz., their growth from out the law, the mean, the unclean 
protects them. Make sure of your election by study and daily 
g-rowth, by asserting it, and beware of your lower self, "the dog 
turning to his own vomits." Increase your treasures, let "the day- 
star arise in your hearts" by opposing the many false teachers of 
to-day. They are the false teachers, who by "lascivious doings" 
promise to reveal mysteries; they are false teachers, who set you 
up in rebellion against the existing order of things, before you have 
grown to the New; they are false teachers who tell you that you 
are a God, forgetting the Human; they are false teachers, who for 
money and for bank-accounts sell the Divine-Gifts; they are false 
teachers who only will teach you in secrecy; they are false teachers 
who teach that which they, themselves, have not lived and ex- 
perienced; they are false teachers, who substitute an impersonal 
god for a personal, who gives you an abstract conception for a 
concrete; what have you gained? False teachers everywhere! 
False teachers abound! 



Brighu, whose heart was the pure essence of virtue, who proceeded 
Jrom Manu himself, thus addressed the great sages: ^^Hear the infal- 
lible rules for the fruit of deeds in this universe." 

Manu Lawbook. 



63 



FIFTH LECTURE. 



I want now to impress upon you the idea of religion as regards 
your ministry. Of course, you understand that I am not going to 
speak theology. I shall speak simply about religion as universally 
understood, and have nothing to do with the dogmas of any special 
religion. 

Religion is consciousness of God and an active love to God. 
Religion presupposes a distinction between God and the World, 
God and Man, but is also a relationship of union between the two. 
Religion is therefore really an expression for man's company with 
God. Both philosophy and art concern themselves with man's re- 
lationship to God; the first expresses that relation in thought; the 
latter does it in plastic forms or by color, etc. But neither of them rep- 
resents a life in God. Religion does. Religion is personal living and 
doing in God. It is this idea I want to emphasize. And this is a 
new side of that fourth form I spoke of before, and the form you 
must live in, in order to fulfill your ministry religiously; yea, which 
you must live in, in order to fulfill your ministry perfectly. 

Follow that great teacher, whom the world looks to as the 
Christ. Follow him, viz., do as he did, live as he lived, etc. I am 
not now^ laying much emphasis upon his teachings, be they ethical, 
dogmatic, etc. I point to the religion of Jesus, to the way he had 
religion. To find what his religion was, or what consciousness he 
had of his relationship to the Father, look upon the praying Christ, 
the Christ in retirement on the hills; look to the Jesus of love in 
that wonderful high-priestly address given us by John, the apostle; 
imitate the trusting Christ, see that faith, that adores, and give way 
to that tenderness which wept over Jerusalem. Do that and you 
shall understand the Religion of Jesus, and you shall get religion; 
not the religion of the scribes or the doctors, but the religion of the 
pious heart, the child's simplicity and faith. You shall thus go forth 
a power and redeem your fellow men. You redeem him from sin 
when you show 'him his disobedience, and he asks the Great Being 
to be forgiven; you redeem him from his ignorance, when you 
teach him that the A B C of religion is to cry "Father;" you redeem 
him from his degraded life, when you cause him to bathe, to hope, 
to smile and to start anew to carve out a life. You become a Re- 
deemer in that way. 

All this I have now said is or ought to be acceptable to you, 
whether you look upon the Lord as a man or as a God. 

55 



There is another thing you want for your ministry, and that 
is more reading in the Bible. Of course you will believe me when 
I say that I am not a bibliolater and have no by-purposes in recalling 
you to the Bible. I will not take you away from your Orientalism. 
No, not for a moment. Study with the Orientals early and late. 
Invite 'them to this country in great numbers and learn all they have 
to teach you. I have heard nothing that is not sound from these 
men. I know many of them personally; some of them I love; for 
all I have the greatest respect. But this is a fact, easily enough 
verified, that historically we are farther on in development than 
they, for to-day they teach and pride tlhemselves that they teach 
doctrines many thousand years old. Historical progress means 
much. It means advancement, it means additions, it means deeper 
and new experiences, for we with our globe have come, on the 
spiral movement, to a position in the universe, where other and 
more factors have come to play than were known thousands of years 
ago. Another fact, also easily verified, is this, that we as Western 
people are radically different from those of the East. We have 
grown out of another soil, and we live differently, and cannot live 
as the Orientals live, even if we wanted to. These and many other 
differences make it impossible for us to accept many if not most of 
the details of Eastern teachings. We may learn from them on gen- 
eral subjects, however. We have neither their depth nor their 
subtlety. We have not their peaceful natures, nor their simplicity; 
and I wish to God that our American people could learn something 
on those lines. I say this and I can say much more that is favorable 
to the Orientals, but they need not my recommendation. You 
have so many of them right here in Chicago, that you know per- 
fectly well what they are and what they can do. 

You understand me now as regards the Oriental Bible, Let 
me now say a word or two for the Western Bible. 

Every one of the most important doctrines, which the Orientals 
teach you and lay so much stress upon, are found in your much- 
neglected Bible, and, as a rule, it seems to me, better stated there; 
at any rate, those doctrines are stated there in a form more suited 
to our use. Let me review some of the more important ones. 

Let me begin with the doctrine of illusion, Maya. Turn to 
Ecclesiastes or the Preacher and you read : "Vanity of vanities, said 
the Preacher, Vanity of vanities; the whole is vanity. What ad- 
vantage is to man by all his labor, etc." That's the philosophy of 
Ecclesiastes, and exactly, in Hebrew rendering, the doctrine of 
Maya. We have the same teaching in ordinary church theology. 
There the doctrine runs: "Forsake the devil, the flesh and the 
world," and the reason is the same: they are illusory. The under- 
tone of the whole Bible is the same. 

We learn that S at-Chit-Ananda — Existence, Knowledge and 

66 



Bliss — are the characteristics of Being in manifestation; we learn 
that Atman, the only true existence, Self, is THAT, which alone 
endures, while everything else changes and disappears. In the 
Bible we have a wonderful parallel to this teaching and one more 
personal or more direct than the philosop'hy of the East. In Col. I 
we read that "Christ is the principle in whom all things stand to- 
gether." In 'true oriental fashion we have here a person spoken 
of as a principle, and, moreover, declared to be the principle in 
"whom all things stand together." What is this but teaching in 
St. Paul's fashion that the Self is the enduring element? This same 
Christ is elsewhere declared to be "the way, the truth and the life;" 
does this trilogy not answer marvelously to Existence, Knowledge 
and Bliss? 

As for that terrible dogma of Karma, we can beat that with 
the Old Testament teachings about the Law. No man can fulfill 
the law, and the law is the condemnation of man. Indeed, the 
Bible holds that that which we sow, we shall reap, and that we are 
judged by our fruits, and that we are saved by our works, etc. 

This dogma of Karma and that of the law is only partially true. 
Life does show us cases where the uttermost farthing has been 
asked. Often it seems that we atone for our sins and pay the 
penalty for every mistake. But as true as it is that nature shows 
straight lines — lines of righteousness — so true is it also, that she 
shows curves, lines of love, and it is a fact, that she shows more 
curves than straight lines. What does this show? It shows that 
there is an abundance of love and mercy to counterbalance the 
straight lines, and the demands, which these make because we 
do not follow them. Have we not individually experienced that 
there is forgiveness? Ah! there is an ocean of mercy, deep and 
large enough to swallow up all Karmic influences and Karmic sins ! 
Mankind — excepting the Hindus and the Jews — believes it and its 
experience is a warrant for its belief. Though we do not know the 
exact workings of Law and Forgiveness; neither do we know all 
about Karma. Let us rest assured that there is mercy as well as law. 
We may even go so far as to take the Christian teaching for our 
guide and say that so long as we are under the law, we are judged 
by the law, and when we place ourselves under mercy, we receive 
mercy. 

Some of the Orientals will not admit our dogma of curves, of 
mercy. I spent the most of a night with Chatterdi Mo'hini, when 
hie was here, some years ago, discussing the dogma. He would not 
admit the curves nor mercy, but counted them both as Karma, 
good Karma. The logical contradiction of a finite man making 
good Karma strong enough to redeem him, he would not see. 
Other Orientals are not so rigid. I believe they have learned mild- 
ness in the West. The whole doctrine of Karma, it sbould be re- 

57 



membered, is really a philosophical play toy of latter date. As 
now taught, or as it has been taught for a thousand years or more, 
it is not found in the Vedas. The Jewish harsh doctrine of Law 
is a product of the scribes and scholastic doctors of Egypt. Both 
Karma and the Law are the clocks of sanctimoniousness. Love is 
the key to life and mercy makes the world move. 

Then there is the great doctrine of Nirvana: union vv^ith the 
Divine, howsoever that be conceived by the various schools. Jesus 
has declared: ''The Father and I are O'ne," and that is true for 
every man. We always were in Nirvana, and when our Mediaeval 
Mystics speak of Union with God, they mean to reassert this funda- 
mental doctrine of the West and remind themselves and their hear- 
ers of it. Our Bible ends with the declaration that God shall be all 
in all, and it opens with the picture of God creating man in his own 
image. Between these two, the End and the Beginning, every 
page teaches how this nirvanic bliss was forgotten and how it is 
recovered. And the Bible is not uncertain in its teachings nor 
indefinite in its definition of Nirvana. Nowhere does it teach a loss 
of The Personal, or the Essential in Man, the most irrational of all 
Eastern teachings. The Bible teaches that we find ourselves in 
God. That "flaming glory," the soul, which left the Deity on that 
morning of creation, does not return empty to its source. It re- 
turns heavily laden with experience. It is "the Divine in Diremp- 
tion," and returns to itself plus its human experience. Souls have 
been returning ever since "the divine awakened in man," and the 
DIVINE IS BECOMING HUMAN. It is therefore that I say 
so often in these lectures and addresses that EVERYTHING IS 
HUMAN. I proclaim a great Mystery! Thus it is! THE DI- 
VINE IS HUMAN. 

The cry is for Adeptship. Mahatmas are wanted everywhere. 
Let the world have them, but why necessarily go to India to become 
an adept by those peculiar ascetic methods, there adopted, especially 
as the adept produced is a recluse and one who shuns human so- 
ciety? Why not fulfill the law implied in the Sermon on the 
Mount. He is an Adept, a Mahatma, a Great Spirit, who lives up to 
that sermon; and that sermon does not drive you into selfish seclu- 
sion to give you powers outside human uses and society. The 
Sermon on the Mount is eminently practical. We need that sort 
of adeptship. One who possesses those eight Blessings has cer- 
tainly attained the Universal Consciousness so much desii'ed, but 
rarely tried for among the modern aspirants for mahatmaship. The 
truth is that most of the candidates condemn themselves by their 
methods. External methods are for the materialistic; the method 
of the Sermon on the Mount is purely spiritual. Everyone seeks 
his methods according to his disposition. 

The moderns talk a great deal about overcoming, so much so 

68 



that the talk has become Cant. Of course, we must learn to over- 
come, and the first step in overcoming self is to keep still about our 
work of overcoming. Overcoming is proved by overcoming: "The 
truth shall make you free." We are judged not by works, but by 
our fruits, and spiritual fruits cannot be seen by the vulgar. 

The Hindus offer us many kinds of Yogas or means of over- 
coming. They are all fine and we have them all in our Bible, and 
under forms more suited to our wants. There is Karma Yoga, the 
yoga of work, which teaches that by incessant and faithful work 
you will liberate yourself from all kinds of bondage, attain supreme 
wisdom and finally lapse into the Deity. This is magnificent phi- 
losophy, true to the uttermost, but there is more in religion than 
there is in philosophy. He, whose work consists in giving him- 
self, that others may live, and who gives himself after God's own 
example — God is both sacrificer, the sacrifice and the sacrificial 
lamb — he is a pattern for others to follow and unites in his char- 
acter both religion and philosophy. Turn to your New Testament 
and you will see two such workers in Peter and James. Read their 
epistles. 

The Bhakti Yoga, the yoga of love, is beautifully illustrated 
in John and his gospel, "The Heart of Christ." I have already 
spoken of the Sermon, on the Mount; it is all Bhakti Yoga. Our 
mediaeval mysticism is full of this yoga. Holy Grael and 
Romanticism are Bhakti Yoga. 

Gnana Yoga holds that man is essentially divine. I have 
spoken of that already. By the Gnana Yoga we are to attain free- 
dom, to go beyond this or that form of existence and to stand in 
Being. Is not this fully declared in the apostle's word: "Not I, but 
Christ in me?" How rich is not this word and how practical! 
Here is a personal power, we can imitate, no abstraction. Here 
is religion, not merely philosophy. 

Raja Yoga, the psychological yoga, recommends concentration 
as a means of union with God. If you will look through, once 
more, the lectures I delivered here in the Spring, you will see 
how elaborate Mysticism is on this subject, and the Mysticism I 
defined is all an outgrowth of the Bible. 

All these Yogas blend most beautifully in the true Christian 
religion. And our Western view has an advantage over the Ori- 
ental. By the Yogas of India Ave are led to an impersonal God, to 
an undififerentiated God, but do we gain anything by that? Why 
and how is an oriental impersonal God better than the Western 
theological and personal God? They are both of no use to the 
spiritual man ! We want no dogmatic God of any kind ! We want 
the whole God, the whole man! We want fullness! I claim we get 
that sooner by means of the Bible than by the Yogas. 

Not only has the Bible shown itself the superior, when we 

69 



compare it to the most universal teachings of India, but intrinsically 
it has claims upon our attention and study. 

For you, who are to engage in the Universal Ministry in 
these days, it is important that you should have a definite program 
to offer, and a program which is not only essentially biblical, but 
which also contains the essence of the Bible. 

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60 







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61 



I have arranged the Decalogue, the Lord's Prayer, and the 
Beatitudes in parallel columns, and for completeness I have added 
the Buddhistic "law," if I may so call it, the nearest I can find, that 
corresponds to the balance of the program. Indeed, the East 
seems singularly barren just here. 

My object has been to demonstrate not only the inner con- 
nection between the Decalogue, the Lord's Prayer and the Beati- 
tudes, but to show you what and how to do. 

Let me explain the diagram. 

The Decalogue has a very great interest for us, and is bind- 
ing, not because it is the will of an arbitrary lawgiver, be he divine 
or human, but because it expresses our innermost nature. The 
law is the law of human conduct. Only by being obedient to it 
can we live right. It is a transcript of our moral necessities. The 
Decalogue is universal, not national. Let us see how it expresses 
human nature. 

That which we are commanded to do or not to do in the 
Decalogue, we pray for or against in the Lord's Prayer, viz., we 
sigh for it. 

"Prayer is tlie soul's sincere desire, 

Unuttered or unexpressed; 
The motion of a hidden fire. 

That trembles in the breast. 

Prayer is the burthen of a sigh, 

The falling of a tear. 
The upward glancing of an eye 

When none but God is near." 

When we pray, we of the New Age, we pray not as those of 
ancient days, who implored or petitioned an absent or angry God. 
Such an attitude implies a fall; 

" addressing Thee 

We sin, because we separate ourselves 
In thought from Thee wlao art our very self; 
For we are nothing if we are not 'Ttiou,' 
And Thou art 'we;' * * * " 

We sigh or express ourselves, when we pray, that our life 
may be perfect, that He may awaken to self-consciousness of 
His existence in our heart. We sigh that our true self expressed 
in ethical forms in the Decalogue may be realized; and our sigh 
is expressed in those prayers standing opposite to the "laws." 

The plenitude of the moral law of the Decalogue and our 
sigh of the Lord's Prayer is expressed in the Blessings put in 
the corresponding column and paragraphs. What are these bless- 
ings but the fulfillment of our struggles? They are indeed the 
crowned life! 

62 



What new life this comparative view brings out before us! 
How rich our rehgious heritage is; how colossal the moral life 
rises in its simplicity! How attractive everything becomes! Is 
the spirit of these laws and sayings not full of inspiration? How 
easy it is now to work in one's ministry to man ! 

Let me now point out the details. 

The first law is the declaration that Being is our Lord. "Self 
is the lord of self, who else could be the lord," is the way it is 
put in the Dhammapada. This is bed rock. We recognize this 
by giving utterance to it in the first prayer: "Our father, who art 
in heaven," and our prayer is lifted out of the mere philosophic 
cognition and becomes a warm uplift of heart. This heart trans- 
formation of a cold intellectual truth is a result of "poverty of 
spirit," viz., that singleness of mind, which sees the Father every- 
where. "Povert}^ of spirit" is itself a gift, a Blessing, and con- 
tains in it the assurance of the kingdom of heaven. Who can 
tell which of the three is first, and which is last? Neither is first, 
nor last nor middle. They are three in one, each other's father, 
mother, child. Who will doubt that here we have the "Right 
BeHef?" 

It is easy to see that our natural law is "not to take the 
Lord's name in vain." It follows as a natural corollary from 
the former. Equally natural it is that we should sigh "hallowed 
be thy name." This is so natural that we wonder how it is pos- 
sible for "the world" to be profane and to be false to its great 
call; yet "the world" is "fallen" and we mourn and cry over Jeru- 
salem. Those of the kingdom and those in training for the king- 
dom are happy at the bottom of their hearts, but in "the world" 
they mourn and have no happiness; there can be none for them. 
But though they mourn, they shall be comforted sometime, for 
"the Avorld" cannot prevail; they carry their blessings with them, 
not only in the power they exert themselves by hallowing the 
Name, but as a direct gift, for in their sigh lies a fulfillment of 
their innermost desire: the Lord's glorification. Is this not Right 
Thought? 

"Keep the Sabbath day holy." What is the Sabbath day in 
our constitution? When do we have Sabbath according to the 
natural law of our being? When we are at Rest and Rest means 
a higher harmony, a universal peace and consciousness of the 
Allpresence. Ought we not keep that holy? What is it to keep 
it holy? It means setting it apart for special spiritual and ideal 
purposes. When in ecstasy, we ought not to defile the Divine 
by dragging it in the mire. How natural that we pray "Thy 
kingdom come." ^ What is the kingdom but a societary enlarge- 
ment of the subjective Sabbath? Who can attain the Sabbath 
Rest? Those mighty ones, who in their own powers rule the 

63 



states — for a while? Nay! The meek shall inherit that kingdom 
the Lord purposed from Eternity, for they are the ones who already 
have it in them. 

With these three parallels closes the first division of the Deca- 
logue, the Lord's Prayer and the Blessings. They relate to the 
Divinity. The next division, the fourth parallel, is small but rich. 
As the first expresses the Divine, so does the second express 
the Hum.an, the Human in fullness. That which in the first is 
Being, is in the second the Becoming. And obedience to the 
second division proves obedience or fulfillment of the first. 

"Honor thy father and mother," etc. Is not this the founda- 
tion-thought of all human life in society? Take away the father 
and mother idea and we are in the sphere of the beast. What 
becomes of our distinctive human life, our arts, sciences and 
society if reverence be removed? They are no more! They are 
built upon a "ground, we do not tread upon;" upon an idea, purely 
human. As Being is the sine qua non universally, so Honor is the 
sine qua non in morals. 

You have heard that the Jews attributed a life to the Deca- 
logue. They considered it a living being. How profound! How 
significant, that the parallel prayer to this commandment is the sigh 
that "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven," or as some 
will have it "Thy fixed purposes in heaven and earth." The Lord's 
v/ill is the establishment of the Human, the Temple built in the 
form of a man. His Own Manifestation. Father and Mother 
are the symbols of that temple. Let me show you this by 
defining the nature of a symbol. When you look deep enough 
you will find that you cannot utter a single sentence without 
speaking in symbols. Language, thoughts, sentiments, emotions 
are but symbols or echoes. The reason is this, that Nature, as 
she lies diffused around us, is immortal language, though latent: 
the language of that Great Being whose image we find stamped 
upon our own souls. Wherever we look — toward the infinitely 
Great or toward the infinitely Small — we see harm.onies of mind 
and nature, and each such harmony is a symbol. Wherever we 
listen, we hear the tunes that announce the perpetual and unceas- 
ing incarnation of the Great All in the works of creation. And 
what is a tune but a symbol? A symbol of the esoteric glory of 
the Deity. 

Wherever we discover an avenue or path that leads to God, 
we step upon an emblem, and a symbol stares us in the face. 

No flow^er blows for its own sake; its brilliant colors reveal 
the sweetness of The Beloved; its perfume IS the love of The 
Beloved. 

The brilliant plumes of tropical birds reflect the golden lights 
of the Heavenly City. 

64 



When mountains call to mountains, we hear in the echo, the 
answer from The Beloved, that He will come soon. 

In the bark of the dog, the lowing of cattle and the roar 
of the wild beast, you hear that longing for home, which is so uni- 
versal throughout creation. 

The sun rises but to assure us of the greater day of eternity, 
which is coming; and sets in the evening upon the ocean to show 
us the "golden bridge" to heaven. 

This is not fancy nor extravagant language, but sober truth. 

It is evident then that a symbol is no arbitrary figure. It is (i) an 
harmony of mind and nature; it is (2) a tune that announces the 
incarnation of the Deity. I may also, using the words of Words- 
worth, say, that in symbols I 

oftentimes 

Hear the still, sad music of humanity. 

Why did Wordsworth say the sad music of humanity? Why 
do I repeat the word? 

Here is a story that may explain it. It is attributed to Attar, 
the Persian Sufi poet. A thirsty traveler dipped his hand mto 
a spring of water to drink from the hollow hand as from a 
cup. Another traveler came likewise to drink, but he drank from 
an' earthen bowl and left it behind him. The first traveler used 
it for another drink and was surprised to find the same water 
l)itter when drank from the earthen cup. But a voice from heaven 
told him that the clay from which the bowl was made was once 
Man, and, into whatever shape renewed, can never lose the bitter 
flavor of mortality. So it is. The gift of humanity is a bitter-sweet 
drink. It is music, but sad music. Humanity is much like a 
splendid ruin. It is as much a veil as a revelation. And so all 
our symbols are living beings. Undines, to whom we have given 
our souls. In them we see reflected the greatest splendor: the 
divine in man, but we see also the frail and weak sensuous man, 
who stands in his own light. He was once, according to the 
legend, the temple in which abode the Holy Grael. But the Holy 
Grael was taken away and is now in the air, hovering over him, 
awaiting another Titurel to rebuild the temple. And so by 

The sad music of humanity 

is symbolized the past splendor, when the Holy Grael was still 
present, and the present sorrow, that the Holy Grael has been 
taken away. 

I speak of symbols as expressions of these three great forms 
•of life: (i) as harmonies of Mind and Nature; (2) as tunes that 
announce the incarnation of Deity; and (3) as the music of humanity. 
The first form covers all our philosophy; the second all our 
religion, and the third all our art and science. 

65 



But — is there no relation between Symbols and Home? Indeed 
there is! 

That harmony between Mind and Nature, which I have called 
a symbol, and which I just said was the sphere of our philosophy — 
that harmony is only realized in the true home. 

That tune from above, the perpetual incarnation of the Divine 
in the works of creation, which I also called a symbol and which 
I just said was the sphere of our religion — that incarnation of 
divine life is realized only in the true home. 

That "sad music of humanity," which all deeper souls hear in 
symbols and which all noble hearts feel throughout all works 
of art, be they of nature or man, that "sad music of humanity," 
the bitter-sweet gift of the gods — marriage — is realized only in the 
true home. 

The true home, then, is the most COMPREHENSIVE SYM- 
BOL. On one side it is Mind and on the other it is Nature. On one 
side it is divine and on the other it is human. Home is the 
actuality of all desire, thought, love and aspiration. Philosophy, 
Religion and Art are mpersonal and idealistic. Home contains 
them all, and is far more, for Home on the human plane answers 
to that which Theology calls the trinity. Home is a realization of 
that most marvelous relationship of Father — Son — Spirit. It 
actualizes this trinity in the mystery of union between Father — 
mother — child. 

Again, Home on the human plane means that which Nature 
so vainly tries to symbolize. It means incarnation. 

Nature is a "system of nuptials," a perpetual bearing, a 
Becoming, a bringing forth, but her child is blind. The stone 
sleeps, the trees rise toward the sun — but great care is taken, as 
Goethe remarked, that they do not grow into heaven. The animal 
moves, but moves hither and thither and knows not why. But man 
opens his eyes and can say "I" — the very appellative of the Divine. 
Man can rise and grow into heaven, because he came from heaven, 
a "trailing cloud of glory." Man can move with freedom and 
build a world for himself, can erect himself as a temple for the 
Divine, and that temple is Home. 

In one word Home is the term, the full, comprehensive expres- 
sion for all this! That's home! That's the relationship of home 
and symbology. 

I speak, then, of symbols as expressions of these four forms 
of life: (i) as harmonies of Mind and Nature; (2) as tunes that 
announce the perpetual incarnation of Deity; (3) as the music of 
humanity; and (4) as expressions of that most wonderful temple 
of all temples, which man has erected or can erect: Home. 

Do you begin to see why we should honor father and mother? 
By way of the Home you do ! 

66 



There are still other characteristics of Home, I must men- 
tion here, for they reveal the spiritual meaning of the fourth com- 
mandment. The baking of bread is one of the main symbols of 
a home. There is no home where bread is not baked. The rudi- 
ments of civilization and home life are first found when breadbaking 
begins. Those peoples who live simply of fruit have not yet settled 
and come under the forms of civilization. No family hearth exists 
among them. The hearth is the family altar, the earliest rudiments 
of home, the first moral factor. The deeper signification of bread 
is wonderful and amazing. In bread we eat indeed, as Paracelsus 
said, heaven and earth, for they have both worked to make it. 
Bread is thus literally "the principle in which all things stand to- 
gether," a phrase St. Paul uses about the Christ. And what is that 
principle but love. In all mythologies bread does signify love. 
Again, in bread we eat the fathe-r and mother principle; father is 
heaven, mother is earth. So it is in all mythologies. 

It will now be seen how profound is the relationship between 
the fourth commandment and the prayer that parallels it. It will 
also readily be seen why the Blessing connected with this com- 
mandment and this prayer is expressed in forms of "hunger and 
thirst." The three thoughts are expressed in symbols of genera- 
tion and regeneration, the most profound mysteries of life, all, 
however, meaning the Human! How weak the Buddhistic "Right 
Speech" is, compared to all this Western Bible symbolism! I do 
not know that any Buddhistic school, not even a Northern one, 
has put so much into the third anga of the "noble eightfold Path." 

The fifth commandment is, "Thou shalt not kill." It is the 
first of the third division. In this division all the commandments 
are negative and the prayers are against the evils implied in the 
commandments. 

We kill by every antagonistic thought, mien, act or word; by 
everything which destroys the kingdom of peace and love, the 
Lord purposed from the Beginning. We pray for the opposite 
virtue when we ask for the daily bread, for bread is, as 1 said 
before. Love. In the corresponding beatitude we are assured that 
mercy shall bring mercy. The following five commandments seem 
contained in this, the fifth. The Buddhistic "Right means of live- 
lihood" may imply that our living (in the widest sense) is not by 
killing or taking, but by gifts. 

Adultery is any and all kinds of falsifications. We are con- 
stantly committing adultery, hence we constantly pray for forgive- 
ness. We know from the Bible and from Mythology, that none 
shall see God and live ; hence we must conclude that the purity here 
required must be^of an angelic order. We understand why none 
shall see God and live ; we are all adulterers or falsifiers. The Bud- 

67 



dhist wisely limits his demands on this point to an endeavor: Right 
Endeavor, 

"Thou shalt not steal." Who has never stolen? Who can say 
that he or she will not do it again? None can say it truly, for we 
break this commandment seventy times a day. Our pride steals 
God's honor; our dishonest or imperfect thougfhts steal Universals 
which we attri'bute to ourselves ; we steal the very air we breathe if 
we do not accept it as a gift, a blessing; we steal our neighbor's 
good name, etc. as well as his goods. We are thieves and robbers 
from mother's womb to our graves. We need, indeed, to pray that 
we fall not into temptations and a very high prize is set for those 
who make peace on earth, those who try not to steal or make a 
disturbance in God's order. Indeed, they are worthy to be called 
"sons of God," for they work on behalf of the kingdom. The Bud- 
dhistic parallel to this, the seventh commandment and seventh 
prayer, is so abstract and far off as to have no bearing upon the 
subject before us. It is certainly Right Memory to remember the 
law against stealing, but memory does not free us from temptation. 

We hear further repetitions of these last memtioned command- 
ments in the eighth against bearing false witness, and the eighth 
prayer is an emphatic cry for deliverance. The Blessing for those 
who have not borne false witness and therefore have been persecuted 
is the highest gift: the Kingdom of Heaven. Logically we could 
expect nothing less; they are simply entitled to that kingdom, for 
they have made it by their uprightness. 

In the ninth and tenth commandments we come to ultimates, 
the vulgar violence of coveting. The spiritually minded does not 
even pray against this vice. It is impossible that he or she could 
covet. Instead of praying they sing the doxology and rejoice in 
their Blessing. 

I have now given a rapid survey of these wonderful teachings 
of the Bible and leave it to yourself to judge whether I am right 
or not in the assertions I made in the beginning of this lecture. I 
claim to be right. 

And now, in conclusion, I want you to organize in order to 
carry out some one line of these parallels. Take any one of them. 
Stick to it and you shall find that by fulfilling any one of them, you 
fulfill them all. Come together and sign a pledge, that you to 
the best of your ability will fulfill, say, the fifth law, fifth prayer, and 
get the fifth Blessing. 

I will stop for a moment here and ask Miss Farmer to speak 
on the Universal Ministry, because she has set it up at Greenacre, 
and Greenacre is no more an experiment, but very largely, as you 
all know, or ought to know, a realization of the ideas I have set 
forth on the Universal Ministry. 

Miss Farmer: I feel it is a great privilege to stand beside 

68 



Prof. Bjerregaard and bear witness to the wonderful help he gave 
to us at Greenacre in realizing our ideal. The little work which 
you hear spoken of by the name of Greenacre originated because a 
few of us got a glimpse of what it is to be a son and daughter of 
God — to be in this world to manifest the wonderful power of God 
to the world. 

The sacredness of it and the beauty of this ministry came with 
great power upon us; and we realized that throughout the world, 
in every corner of the world, were devoted sons and daughters 
living the life of purity and consecration; we felt the power of 
those who had gone before us, and we felt the power of those who 
were working in distant places, in mountain fastnesses and desert 
places, and it seemed to us that it would be a great benefit and 
strength to us all, if we could, in our little corner, call together 
those devoted ones, to confer about the wonderful kingdom of God. 
We called them together. That gathering is Greenacre. Men say 
to us sometimes, we don't want to talk about those things; we are 
here to live a common life, to pay attention to things that are prac- 
tical. But some of us feel that the kingdom of God is the one thing 
in the world that is practical; and it was to show its practicability 
and its fitness to every condition of life that a few of us went to 
the banks of that beautiful river between Maine and New Hamp- 
shire, the Piscataqua, and sat down there in quietness, and invited 
the loftiest souls to come and tell us about their work and show 
how it was related to the kingdom of God. We realized that there 
was nothing in the world, without some good in it, nothing in 
which God may not manifest himself and speak his Word. It was 
said to us in the beginning when we called to us the highest we 
could find in art, "what has art to do with religion?" We felt that 
it had everything to do with religion ; that art was the broad avenue 
by which many souls would come to their father; we had art lec- 
tures to help people to realize that art was an avenue, a ministry, 
almost as sacred — art has many forms — or more sacred than any- 
thing else. We felt this, too, that of all the privileges that are given 
to the world to-day, all the problems that are agitating us, that 
are being pondered upon day and night, every question could be 
answered before the sun set, if every soul in the world had found 
the kingdom of God in its own soul, had found harmony and peace 
and were trying to bring it into the world. As soon as we find that 
harmony we become a law in ourselves. 

In looking for an emblem, we wanted something that would be 
a call to everybody and fit everybody, and we felt that the message 
that had been brought to the world by prophet after prophet, was 
the message of peace. We realized that that was the one thing 
the world needed more than all else. People are seeking happiness 
and joy in every avenue. So we put a large banner over our heads 

69 



with these letters on it, PEACE, and we asked every child of God 
who came to us to give us the fullest message, the largest word 
which he had to say or to bring, but with no word of criticism, 
nothing about the other brother's way of working. We felt it was 
a great privilege to have representatives from the East in that 
opening summer; to feel that we were clasping hands as brothers 
and that the cord we w^ere stretching would extend around the 
world. At first it was only a little work, but it has been such a 
blessing; it has been so to many, and there are those in this room 
who can testify to the blessings that have come to them. I think 
there ought to be such a consecrated spot in every part of our coun- 
try — all cannot come to Greenacre, it is only a little place — but 
everybody can form a little Greenacre in his own life and with 
others. People ask what Greenacre is, if it is this thing or that or 
the other. I say it is Greenacre. I cannot define it. The moment 
we define we limit. It has been the spirit of God working in our 
midst; it has been perfect freedom. We expected money to help 
us forward, but that door was closed and we seemed called to go 
forward without money. Then the word came with strong force, 
"Not by might or power but by my Spirit, saith the Lord," and we 
felt strongly that there was a power beyond money on which we 
could depend. THERE IS A POWER THAT COMES FROM 
RIGHTEOUSNESS. We thought if we had money we saw things 
that could be done, but we found they could be done without money. 
This became our trust. We found it was God's work; all the money 
we needed came just as we needed it, just at the right time, because 
God would move some heart, who recognized its stewardship, to help 
us. Dear friends, it is one of our joys that we are just as necessary 
to God as God is to us. 

It seems to me this afternoon, when I thought over of all the 
beautiful messages, that have come to us there, which of all I 
should lay you most to heart, that would mean the most to you, 
that it was meekness. Meekness is the greatest force in life. The 
victories of the world are won by the meek. Prof. Bjerregaard has 
said to us, that we must submit, and so it is, we submit in cheerful- 
ness and gladness, because we have found that to be the way, that 
leads to God. Of all things, when we can conquer the personal 
self and let the power of God work through us, then we may safely 
go forward without any fear of anything. There can then be no 
lack; no good thing shall be withheld. That has been the dominant 
spirit at Greenacre. 

There has been no personal leadership. Every soul that came 
there felt that it was his own work as much as it was anybody else's, 
and did it. Each one sunk his personal self in the common good, 
and found that the one joy was service, service for service's sake, 
love for love's sake. 

70 



Think of the tired, anxious workers in business here in this 
city; many of them working to fulfill God's work in the world, 
with anxious thoughts, not knowing what will happen six months 
hence. If they could see this wonderful law of trust and meekness, 
no failure could come to them. We are endeavoring to bring it 
into the business world. 

I could name many great souls here in Chicago, who have 
strengthened us in our needs, and we believe that Greenacre is just 
as much the work of Chicago' as it is the work of the East, and it 
belongs just as much to the Orient as to the Western lands. The 
words that have been spoken there from the Orient have been 
words of life to many souls. I think that in time to come there will 
be many Greenacres all over the world dedicated to God and testify- 
ing to the truth of the vision. None has seen it more clearly than 
the teacher who stands before us to-day. None has held us to a 
higher ideal than he does. You know of the Crusaders who went 
forth searching for the Holy Grael, which was supposed to be the 
cup in which the blood of the Savior was held. There is now a 
new crusade inaugurated, not to search for the Holy Grael, for it 
was found, but to go forth in this new ministry — to go forth like 
the knights of old. How did those knights of Mount Salvate live? 
They must live lives, pure in thought and word and deed. The 
spirit was upon them and they went forth with knowledge, — ^they 
knew where wrongs were to be redressed and they went forth and 
redressed the wrongs; but they could never speak of their works. 
If they did they must come back. And this law of silence is one 
of the greatest to learn, but you must learn it. You must not speak 
of yourself as a Knight of Mount Salvate. Most of us are like the 
young convert, so full in the beginning. When he got the first 
glimpses, he felt he must tell everybody; but in many cases he 
forged darts which came back upon him, because of imprudences. 
It is now perhaps eight or ten years ago, when a clergyman in 
the West sent me a letter in which he said, that the true indispen- 
sable of spiritual work was silence and struggle, silence lest the 
divine atoms should be dissipated in speech, and struggle because 
the natural man rejects the divine man. I thought once I had 
learned what struggle was, but silence was so hard. I found as I 
got on in my experience, that the secret of power lies in silence. 

The lecturer: Let Greenacre be an encouragement to you. The 
Universal Ministry has been set up there in one form. Greenacre 
is no experiment, but is a reality; so real, that it can be imitated. 
Will you not folloAv the example here in the neighborhood of Chi- 
cago? I will help you. Miss Farmer will helpyou. 



71 



This so solid-seeming world, after all, is but an air-image over Me, 
the only reality ; and Nature, with its thousand-fold production and 
destruction, but the reflex of our own inward force. — 

T. Carlyle. 



We see the world piece by piece, as the sun, the moon, the animal, 
the tree ; but the whole, of which these are the shining parts, is the soul. 
From within or from behind a light shines through us upon things, and 
makes us aware that we are nothing, but the light is all. 

R. W. Emerson. 



73 



SIXTH LECTURE. 



INVOCATION. 

Ye deities! who fields and plains protect, 

Who rule the seasons, and the year direct, 

Ye fauns — 

Ye nymphs that haunt the mountains and the plains 

* * * V * * j^j»jjjrf 

Your needful succor. * . * * * * • 

Leave, for a while, O Pan! thy loved abode. 
You who supply the ground with seeds of grain, 
^nd you, who swell those seeds with kindly rain. 
Be ye propitious ****** 
***** hear and grant our prayers. 

(Comp. Georgics I, 1-64.) 

This evening we come to a nev/ subject. I shall speak no 
more on Soul-Development and shall not teach any psychology. 
We meet, however, the same ideas we have been interested in, 
in the new Subject, Nature- worship, viz., Nature-worthship. 

For the time being we will talk about Nature as if she were 
something essentially different from soul. She is not different. 
The so-called objective world is to me, and ought to be to you only 
an EXTENSION of the Human. Look at the landscape — it is 
not a mass of dead matter, so-called. It is a soul, it moves, it 
speaks to us, it impresses us with greatness and a longing for the 
Infinite. It behaves divinely. "The world is an idea of the self- 
existing." "The earth is all enchanted ground." "The world is 
a man, and man is a world." "The World, like a radiation, is 
not and cannot be separated from the sum of the substance of 
the mighty God."' You can say 

I am all this visible earth; 
1 am all this visible sky; 
I am all this visible fire; 
I am all this visible wind; 
I am all this visible ocean — 
It is I that made all this ocean-girt world; 
It is I that became all this ocean-girt world. 
It is I that own all this ocean-girt world.' 
'Desatir: ^Omar Khayam: ^Nammahvar Tirnvoymozhi in the 
"Awakening of India." 

Inorganic nature, as such, does not exist. It is organized, and 
is, as it were, the universal germ, the matrix, out of which orgaji- 

75 



ization proceeds. The organization of each body is but the inter- 
nal evolution of the body itself; the earth, by its own evolving, 
becomes animal and plant. And yet the organic world has not 
formed itself out of the inorganic, but was, at least potentially, 
present in it from the beginning. What now lies before us appar- 
ently as inorganic matter, is the residuum of an organic meta- 
morphosis, is that which at first trial was unable to become or- 
ganic. All things are internally identical and the potential pres- 
ence is the same in all. The so-called dead matter is an animal 
world, a plant world asleep; sometime in the future it may wake 
up and animate. 

Nature is visible mind and mind is invisible nature. In the 
idea of the absolute ideality of the mind within us and nature 
without us lies the solution of the problem how it is possible for 
a nature outside of us to be. Nature is a copy, a Doppelbild, of the 
mind, which the mind itself produces in order to discover itself. 
The mind sees itself everywhere; sees as H. C. Andersen did so 
naively, the man in the plant and the animal; sees, as the poetic 
and mystic mind does, "the father's face," the Human, everywhere, 
sees as A. Oehlenschlager did the Gospel in the stone and running 
brook, in the mist and in the green leaves. You all know how Cole- 
ridge and Wordsworth in particular expressed this view, how 
they saw the Human or Mind everywhere. The key to Nature is 
the psychic factor. The key to the human life is the heart. Every- 
thing is symbolical of the soul. The Ego, the Human, is the true 
Absolute. 

Matter is simply a name for the Abyss, whence flows "the stuff," 
viz., EXTENSION for Deity, but both "the stufif" and the abyss 
are one. Matter is thus Human, for Human is the right name 
for the Universal. We only KNOW the Human. 

In psalms Man utters his innermost emotions and finds rest 
by the utterance, for all utterance is creation and all creation is 
rest. 

In Holy Books Man records his experiences and in their 
reflection finds Himself, though he sometimes mistakes the vision for 
another. 

In creeds Man formulates his inner life; and in churches Man 
organizes his forces; in liturgies and rituals he expresses his re- 
ligious emotions. These creeds, churches and liturgies are often 
so spontaneous that Man takes them for what he calls revelations 
from extra-human sources, but time and growth clear his mind 
and he sees himself and his own mind's products. 

All these forms are HUMAN and beyond that HUMAN there 
is nothing. 

It is the same power — the Human or the Divine in manifesta- 

76 



tion — which as sunbeams call the animal and vegetable world 
into being and which creates and re-creates the moral law in our 
hearts. 

It is the same power — the Human — which calls the flower to 
open itself and which turns the inner eye to seek the all-good 
and all-true. 

It is the same power — the universal Human — which covers 
the ruins with moss, to hide its ugliness, and which throws the 
mantle of forgiveness over a wasted life. 

It is the same power — the Human — which draws the spring 
from the mountain side and which opens the wells of love in the 
heart. 

All circles of life run into one another, and like Dante's vision 
they reveal innermost the Human. 

Everywhere a Human Mind and a Human Heart! 

The intelligent forms of ancient poets, 

The fair humanities of old religion, 

The Power, The Beauty, and the Majesty, 

That had their haunts in dale, in piny mountain. 

Or forest by slow stream, or pebbly spring, 

Or chasms or wat'ry depths; all these have vanish'd; 

They live no longer in the faith of reason! 

But still the heart doth need a language, still 

Doth the old instinct bring back the old names, 

'And to yon starry world they now are gone. 

Spirits or gods, that used to share this earth 

With man as with their friend; and to the lover 

Yonder they move, from yonder visible sky 

Shoot influence down; and even at this day 

'Tis Jupiter who brings whate'er is great. 

And Venus who brings everything that's fair! 

—Schiller's Wallenstein; tr. by Coleridge. 

Because the Nature man, the free man, feels the Human every- 
where, he worth-ships it. It is the highest possible reality which 
a living being can realize. The Human is to him the character 
and type of the thing. The Human has not arisen from the 
thing; the thing has come into existence by way of the Human;, 
is an emanation from the Human. The Human comes first in 
the descending scale of serial emanation; afterward comes the 
thing, and comes in the image of man. Existence is a system of 
relations; first comes the self, then the not-self. Man in the pleni- 
tude of his being, or, the Human, is his own end. 

How natural, then, that he worth-ships nature, and can do 
naught else. Though arrogant and foolish individuals may deny it, 
they are still bound up so with nature, that only by placing themselves 
in a worth-shipful attitude can they come to rest The Gita says 
truly: "This world is not for him who does not worship." No 
one can understand, enjoy or realize their own lives who does 

77 



not worth-ship; "all the world is love's dwelling." (Hafiz.) The 
ancient gods of nature are not dead; they have been turned into 
demons and now they torment the blase. No worn out soul, no 
one in conflict with himself, can enjoy nature. How could he? 
He is in contradiction to himself. 

Let me not know the change 
O'er Nature thrown by guilt!— the boding sky, 
The hollow leaf-sounds ominous and strange, 
The weight wherewith the dark tree-shadows lie! 

What poor, blind mortals those around us whom city life and 
business have destroyed, whose dim sight cannot see that all nature 
is symbolic of man, and have never observed that "the earth changes 
like a human face." 

" * * man, once descried, imprints forever 

His presence on all lifeless things: the winds 

(Are henceforth voices, wailing or a shout, 

A querulous mutter or a quick, gay laugh. 

Never a senseless gust * * 

The herded pines commune and have deep thoughts: 

A secret they assemble to discuss 

When the sun drops behind their trunks which glare 

Like gates of hell: the peerless cup afloat 

Of the lake-lily is an urn, some nymph 

Swims bearing high above her head * * 

The morn has enterprise; deep quiet droops 

With evening; triumph takes the sunset hour; 

Voluptuous transport ripens with the corn 

Beneath a warm moon like a happy face: 

And this to fill us with regard for man * * "* 

♦Browning: Paracelsus. 

When we come out into the fields or out upon the ocean, 
in among the mountains, we are under the proper surroundings 
in which "to pray" for that which we long, that which is to come, 
because Nature is the Becoming, the Coming. In those places 
we are in the right environment and can best hear our own voice 
and heart beat. If our sigh returns as ashes upon our tongue, we 
have surely asked for the wrong. If the wide vista of transpar- 
ent air does not open up to show us a vision, our position is false. 
If the glorious Sun, Zeus in almighty and allwise manifestation, 
does not smile encouragingly, we may know that our wish is not 
true and good. 

Let me tell you a story. Two lovers walked abroad in the 
fields to look at the distant hills. The hills so fascinated them 
that they simultaneously conceived the idea to go up into them. 
It is always inspiring to go up into a mountain. They wanted 
to go up a hill, just before them, the highest of them all, as if 

78 



to an altar, there to offer prayer for liberation from present bondage, 
and freedom to join hands and hearts openly in the world. Secretly 
they were one and always have been, but only lately affinity had 
brought them together. They reached the mountain and they 
climbed it. Her smile and ecstasy encouraged him and his strong 
arm lifted her. They told of their longings for each other; how 
they had searched far and wide in the crowd, in the king's palace, 
in the farm, in the market-place, and everywhere. How they 
had looked and now and then thought that they had found. 
The spirits of rock and tree led them into their secrets and 
they dreamt of far gone periods of existence. She told him how 
she recognized in him a remembrance of a past hero and he said 
that she appeared to him a realization of that ideal woman, who 
always came to him in dreams. When they came to a promontory 
and the open country lay before them with its villages, rivers 
and forests, they vowed to travel together through the world to 
see all that beauty. At last they reached the top and before them 
lay the vision of the distant horizon, enclosing their present prison 
of uncongenial companions, but also a promise that their future 
was as wide and enclosed as many possibilities of happiness as 
the surrounding country enclosed various objects. They were weary 
from the struggle in bondage and weary of the climb, but they 
were happy. 

A refreshing rest, a love embrace, a sigh and the descent 
began. The sun was calling the evening hour of prayer. They 
stopped on a rocky promontory and looked into the sun asking 
the sphinx for a word to remember. Just then the sun shone 
more gloriously than at any time of the day. Warmth and love 
came riding on mountain mist and the panorama revealed forms 
of bliss. They saw themselves as ethereal spirits ascending and 
they bowed down before Nature's throne and felt a blessing being 
given. He spoke first and said: "Here before thee, glorious orb, 
my elder brother, I declare this woman to be my wife, for I 
have found her and she is my own soul. Thou art above; here 
below and upon this rock on which we stand, I say that I have 
known her always and that we are more firmly bound than the 
particles of this rock, we stand upon. In the presence of these 
trees, which are the ladder to heaven, called out of the rocks 
by Thee, Great Sun, I swear fidelity and claim my rights." And 
she said: "Amen — yes, so it is, so it was, and so it shall be. I 
kiss this leaf and throw it into the valley below. It is my mes- 
sage, I send into the Abyss. It binds me! It is my testimony. 
Glorious Sun, I thank Thee! Now I can bear my chains; they 
are no more chains. I am happy." While they spoke they stood 
arm in arm and when they kissed each other, the birds sang their 
best song. The evening was solemn and the night divine. They 

79 



remember the mountain and their declarations : their mountain, their 
declaration. Within a few months they married. 

A member: Are we not under the influence of the stars? 

Lecturer: You ask me about nativities, influences of the stars, 
and what not. Your questions seem to imply that you take for 
granted that you are RULED by natural circumstances and not 
free to carve your own fortune. 

I protest against such an explanation of our existence. We 
are free spirits and not naturalistic elements. An Ingersoll may 
talk about Jehovah's brutalities, but his picturesque delineations are 
nothing compared to the pictures we should have to paint if 
Necessity really ruled us as the astrologers would have us believe. 
There is something radically wrong in Astrology as popularly 
taught. We are only to a limited extent dependent upon and rest- 
ing upon the "order of things.-' Life is certainly a current that 
carries us along with it, but we can also cross the stream, yea, we 
can sail against both current and wind. It is true that the fox 
grows gray, but never good, and that the crab-tree does not bear 
pippins. But above those laws rules the Self, and the Self is 
essentially free. Freedom is its very essence. In Self is both 
form, will and contents. Out of itself, by itself, for itself, it con- 
structs its own world. The laws of nature do not rule the Self; 
Self is freedom, will, poise, character, beauty. It is man's world 
and man is master. He is born to be master. Sovereignty is his 
birthrigfht. 

I protest against the modern revival of Karma. We do not 
want to see the old stage paraphernalia again. We live in a new 
world, a world of loving service, truthfulness, purity, obedience and 
love, and all these virtues spring from man himself. We do not 
draw from Necessity. Our world is full of goodness; the very air 
we breathe is surcharged with wisdom and love. We draw from 
the infinite stores, the infinite reservoirs, the ideals, and we sail 
upon the ocean of mercy. Our pilot never sleeps and his mighty 
arm never grows weary. 

I grant that two worlds are ours, but the ideal world, I main- 
tain, is the real and the strongest. We will not, we cannot, any 
longer drift as logs with the varying tides of natural life. We hoist 
our sail, we get up steam and we sail according to the dictates of 
our true humanity. 

It is true, that most of us have to fight to maintain that freedom. 
It is true that from an everyday standpoint we seem to lie in mid- 
air, and our position seems unsafe. But how can that really be? 
What is firmer and safer than the Deity? We are in the Deity when 
we are free. 



80 



When I talk about Nature worship — nature-worthship 
— there is always a perplexing problem that comes up before my 
mind. Is she not sometimes wanton? Is she perhaps fiendish? 
Certainly she does seem reckless in the way she destroys her own 
work. Let me quote from my daybook: : 

"In 1870 I spent my vacation, together with a number of fel- 
low students, on the heaths of Jutland. We came out with the 
purpose of camping on the heath. Before we could perfect our 
arrangements, we spent a few days with a miller near the romantic 
and historic lake of Hall, near Viborg. From this place we took 
daily rambles in various directions among the hills, in order, so 
to say, to get used to the monotony of a heath landscape. 

One hot July afternoon we started out to walk about ten miles 
due south into the heath, to return late by the moonlight, so to 
see what a night on the heath looked like. But the fates were 
against us, for we had scarcely walked four miles, when by turning 
round we were startled by seeing in the distance heavy volumes of 
smoke rise from the ground. As far as we could locate the probable 
fire, it was in the direction of the plantings on the hills southwest of 
Hall Lake. With one voice we uttered a despairing cry, for intui- 
tively we felt the impending danger. 

Though intensely sorry for the destructions that would follow 
the consuming march of the flames, we could not but admire the 
wonderful efifect of the sunlight upon the smoke. It rose heavy 
and dark, only relieved 'here and there by some white circling lines, 
but as these circles ascended, they reflected the sun in exquisite 
green tints, sometimes changing to yellow, sometimes becoming 
more reddish, when the wind fanned the flames higher up. The 
smoke seemed to keep hanging in the air, like clouds, and little by 
little they covered the whole horizon. Evidently the fire was of 
large dimensions and covered an extensive area of land. For hours 
we stood silently watching the spectacle, before we started toward 
the fire. It seemed to be Nature's best efforts in color blending, 
and for us new studies in chromatic efifects. She seemed to be 
planning new combinations of tints not known to man, and as she 
could indulge her ease in regard to time, for nO' man could put 
down the fire, she first tried the effects of the midday sun, but found 
time, too, to study her fiery transformations of the landscape in 
sunset and pale moonlight, and sunrise as well. With grim satis- 
faction she seemed to enjoy her work, for the sunset was magnifi- 
cent, and the moonlight of the night was as calm and elevating as 
any. Peace and quiet rested everywhere, except on the burning 
hills, where the -trees lost their lives as if they were cast into a 
burning and seething oven, and where the despairing cries of the 
small creeping things of the earth were unheard in the roar of the 
flames. 

81 



It was at least four miles away and we should not reach it 
before night. We started at last, and set out with a will to help, if 
our help could do anything to arrest such a fire, that seemed to be 
surging as a flood over acres upon acres. Upon arrival we found 
our anticipations verified. The old plantations of pine and spruce 
were burning and nothing could be done to stop the flames, because 
the ground was burning, too. The peat and dry vegetable matter 
in which the trees grew had now become an unconquerable enemy 
to the trees. The only prospect of an end to the fire lay in the fire 
reaching the foot of the hills, where it would extinguish itself in 
the lake. Roaring in its intense fury, the fire wreathed itself in glit- 
tering rings round the pine trunks, and, bursting with loud thunder, 
it fell as one broad blaze upon the foliage of the yet untouched trees. 
Though no wind nourished the flames, they fanned themselves into 
fury, and rolling along the inflammable soil, it consumed everything 
before it over a tract of land a thousand yards long and a little less 
wide, leaving only a few charred trunks and roots and the raw, 
blackened soil behind it. It burned all night, and not till evening 
the next day was it satiated, and that only because it reached the 
lake. The last burning trees fell in the water as if the fire had run 
itself mad and would attempt the existence of another element. 

What is the philosophy of this, was asked, and an expression of 
opinion was freely given. Almost all voted that this fire was a fiend- 
ish act of nature and a national calamity. 

The soil on these heaths is in many places only a foot or two 
deep. Below it is Ahl or sand. The horn of an angry bull will 
rip it open and let out the dreaded sand, and the hoof of a horse 
will force it out. 

A national calamity ! How much time, labor and cost had not 
the government spent upon this tract of land to raise some vegeta- 
tion on it! The soil is too "chalky" for grass, othervvase these heaths 
would have become prairies long ago. Now they will only grow 
the heather, and the common broom, and, where, after long seasons 
of patient toil, some foundation for diminutive trees have been 
made, the government plants them. It had taken centuries to pre- 
pare the soil for these firs and spruce, and they themselves had 
struggled hard enough for a hold upon existence. Now in a few 
hours all this had been destroyed and lost. It will take other cen- 
turies to make a soil out of decomposed heather, deep and rich 
enough to nourish the poor shrubs that fight for light in it. 

Our excursion had been spoiled, so from the now black and 
desolate hills we returned to the mill to resume our journey the 
next morning. In the evening we very naturally discussed the calam- 
ity of the fire and general sadness prevailed. A sadness very much 
to the credit of the company, for it showed its patriotism and 
demonstrated very clearly that all comprehended the nature of the 

82 



loss. Nobody can realize this who does not know what scarcity 
of timber means on the heath, or who has never seen the shifting 
sands break loose from under the soil and destroy his gardens and 
plantings. 

I myself did not take much part in the discussion, but deliv- 
esred myself in the course of the evening of the following little 
speech. "It is easy enough," I said, "to point tO' nature's cruelty and 
show the martyrdom of all creation. It is not difficult to discover 
decline and death all around us. The heath itself is an example 
upon the penury of nature, if you so will. But this is only one side 
of nature. Wherever there is decrease, there is also increase; life 
and death follow upon one another in a ceaseless round. Nature 
swings between two extremes and repeats herself. It may also be 
charged that she never directly produces the Immortal. It is true 
she often destroys in a few hours all the works of her hands for 
many years. We have just seen such a case. With absolute in- 
difference to consequences she submerges large tracts of land by 
earthquakes or by floods and recklessly she kills scores by pesti- 
lence. These facts are only too well known. All this is true, but 
I maintain that she cannot act otherwise. It is so her law. All 
her doings are "one against another." It has been beautifully said, 
that nature is a "system of nuptials," always endeavoring to multiply 
life. One might as truthfully say that she is death, always endeav- 
oring to destroy the very life, she has produced. Every man's ex- 
perience has proved that to his own satisfaction, and the Orientals 
have expressed this great truth in their mythology. Siva, the sym- 
bol of the destructive powers of life, is an equal of Brahma, the 
creative power. I repeat, therefore, and say that nature can do 
no otherwise. She is blind and acts unconsciously. And from this 
standpoint I excuse and defend her. 

I have admitted that nature never directly produces the Im- 
mortal, and from that standpoint I am willing to criticise, but not 
from any other. And even here I will act and speak with caution. 
If she cannot teach us directly, she can do it by means of riddles, 
indirectly, or in dark hieroglyphics write man a text about immor- 
tal life, though she can neither interpret him the text, nor give him 
a key to it. Let me explain this by a few examples from the life 
of the plants. Some gentle hand, for instance, breaks ofif a lily 
in the garden. An act, by the way, equal to murdering a human 
being, for it is taking from that plant the aim and object of all its 
vital energies, an object as valuable to the plant as life is to man. 
The lily, however, is not yet discouraged; in honest toil it renews 
its efforts, and soon sends forth new flowers, one after another, from 
the small side braiichlets. This the plant does always if its struc- 
ture permits and its vitality has not been exhausted in the first 
effort. Certainly it would never have done it but for the destruction 

83 



of the first born. Thus the lily testifies to its belief in. its power 
to survive destruction. It teaches quietly the lesson that it will 
and cannot cease to labor till it shall have done its work. And what 
is this but Nature's belief in immortality? To be sure it is not the 
crude idea of being called out of the gTa.ve with a body like the 
one laid down into it. It is a much nobler and far-reaching thought. 
It reveals a state of mind which rests in the idea, that time is only 
a phenomenal appearance and that the soul which lives to-day shall 
also live to-morrow. But to expect to live to-morrow is psy- 
chologically the same as to expect to live always. The emphasis is 
upon your expectation, not upon the form you may assume to-mor- 
row. 

Again, go into the fields; you see it right here on the heath, 
and you observe that wherever the cattle have bitten off the young 
green flower-'heads new shoots are coming forth from every joint 
below. They crop out by the dozen to substitute the single one 
broken off. Is that not wonderful? But these illustrations are not 
single instances, parallels may be found throughout Nature's 
various kingdoms, and they all show how far she is able to hint at 
spiritual truth and to foreshadow it." 

Here my speech was suddenly broken ofif. It seemed to the 
audience that I was about to defend and exalt Nature, to which 
they objected unanimously. 



We must be merged in the Beloved to know the Beloved. We 
must love Nature to understand Nature's love. 

When I was young I was fond oi the heath, and quite at home 
among the heathers, and enjoyed the noiseless desert. I felt the 
power of loneliness and was under its spell. The loneliness put me 
in relation to the penetration of Nature and by way of the "little 
things" I learned to worship Nature. Here is an extract from my 
daybook : 

"As I lie here among the heathers, I wonder at the origin 
of the delicate color of their little flowers-. All so noble, and made 
with equal care and allotted an equal share of brightness. How and 
when did they get it and where and when did this all-comprehend- 
ing loving kindness, which did it, acquire its skill? I do not only 
wonder, but I admire, and my admiration grows to reverent love. 
As I grow ecstatic. Nature becomes more personal and eloquent. 
There is a sermon of love and praise in these little flowers. The 
difference between this sermon of Nature's and that of the minister 
is, that he is merely a professor and talks too much, while Nature's 
preaching is really a conversation and her subject is always that 
of her listener's heart. Her words suit always the occasion and 

84 



you feel she knows what she talks about, though she cannot ex- 
press all she knows. Her eloquence is so quiet and simple, that 
you instinctively confide in her. 

This heath is not lonesome to me. I am by my Beloved. I 
am alone with Nature. We are alone by ourselves, and as two 
lovers we may enjoy those little details of life, which are so inter- 
esting to lovers, because they are so personal and so private. They 
are little things, but after all they are closely connected with the 
great events of our life. The more we can learn tO' keep ourselves 
face to face with the simple and pretty little things of Nature, the 
nearer we shall come to her heart. Truly they are wonderful, and 
I was never surprised at the exclamation of the Sufi poet: Cleave 
an atom, and in it, you shall find a world. Indeed the infinitely 
small is as marvelous as the infinitely great. The mystery of the 
starry heavens is no greater than the mystery of the making of a 
heather flower here upon the sandy desert of Jutland. 

Like all lovers, Nature is quite jealous of these little common 
things. They show her privacy and she wants them, recognized. 
But ah! men are too dull. It takes a cataclysm of worlds to wake 
him up, and then he forgets it next day, anyhow. 

I fancy all lovers trace out the beginnings of their love; it 
would be so natural if they did. It would certainly be a delightful 
pastime, I imagine. I ask Nature about the beginning of her love 
and she answers me, that she saw me, when I was made in secret, 
and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. I en- 
deavor to imagine this wonderful love, but give up, not in despair, 
but in perfect confidence to the truth of her word. The truth is, 
we never see beginnings. Who can trace, for instance, a river to 
its start — its first start? Nobody can do it. It really does not begin 
in the spring, which we point to. The spring is only a concentra- 
tion of the innumerable little drops that fall from the moss and 
from the trees and trickle down the hillside to the spring. And 
where did these drops come fro^m, but from the clouds? And the 
clouds, did they come all from the ocean? Did not some of them, 
or perhaps the largest part of their substance, exist fro'm the Begin- 
ning? But what was back of that beginning, I know not. Push 
my query back as far as I may, I find not the beginning of Nature's 
love. She loved always; she is love." 

I have grown enthusiastic, but a lover's enthusiasm is excus- 
able. 



85 



This is the Lord's own day. 
I stand alone in the wide field. 
It is as if a multitude 
Knelt down and prayed with me. 



— Move along these shades 

In gentleness of heart ; with gentle hand 

Touch — for there is a spirit in the woods. 



— These trees shall be my books. — 



87 



SEVENTH LECTURE. 



Let us sink back into ourselves for a few moments. Close your 
eyes and sit perfectly still. 

INVOCATION. 

"May that soul of mine and that of yours, which is a ray of the 
divine lig-ht of the great universal love, be united by devout medita- 
tions with that Infinite Light whence we have come. May we for 
a moment or two sink back into the Great All and stand in Being. 
May we now and hereafter live that universal life which is to live 
the true life, and may the Great All light upon us, and may th'e 
Great All, in its manifestations shine upon us, and may the Great 
All, combining the spirit of the first and the second powers, lead 
us through this existence." 



The subject is again Nature worship. We ought, of course, to 
have been outdoors and under the pines. But the weather will 
not allow us. You must make the best of it and think yourself out 
there among the trees. Forget that you are in the city and that 
it is winter. 

I will give you a symbol, which antiquity and the modern 
world can agree in calling the unit of existence. The symbol is 
the pine cone. 

But before I explain the wonders of the cone, let me speak 
of the pine tree. I will not merely tell you some scientific facts, 
I will speak of the pine because of its human traits. "We are 
plants," said Plato, and it is true in more than a figurative sense. 
We are plants, and it is therefore that no place is so eloquent as a 
forest. 

There is a power, a presence in the woods; 

A viewless Being, that with life and love 

Informs the reverential solitudes; 

The rich air knows it, and the mossy sod— 

The pine grove especially is sacred ground. The very light 
that streams through the dim and dewy veil of the foliage has a 
cathedral air about it, and the tremulous sounds that come from 

89 



the pine needles whisper awful secrets. It behooves us to wander 
with reverence, for we are among witnesses as old as the earliest 
vegetable growth on earth, and the pine is the most universal of 
all trees. It represents in all zones and forms as Oken has said so 
significantly, "the mountain's roof." 

Botanically, the pine is a most peculiar and interesting tree, 
and it is as such that it can be so helpful to us in leading us back 
toward the origin of things. Its primitivity is seen in its simplicity 
of fructification, which is similar to the lowly club-moss, that creeps 
along among the heathers. That which is transitory in the higher 
trees is here permanent. The pine stands in its arrested growth 
as a bridge from far remote ages, and over it we may travel back 
and see many mysteries on the other side. One mystery is that 
peculiar darkness that broods over the pine wood. We must study 
it ! Another is those dirge-like tones we hear in those woods. We 
must study them! In those mournful murmuring sounds, now 
low, now soft, ever varying with the rising and falling breeze, we 
ought to be led into that holiness of melancholy so characteristic 
for the prophet. The sough of the wind fanning the air over the 
many edges suggests ruins, and we seem transferred to the ages 
of cataclysms and great upheavals. So consistent with its sym- 
bology is the pine, that is has no leaves, but only stalks for leaves. 
Its cone is the arrested flowerbud of higher trees. The Bible speaks 
of the Cedars of the Lord both as a phallic emblem, and with refer- 
ence to the pine as the oldest of all trees on the earth. When the 
gods walked the earth, I imagine they walked in sacred groves of 
pines. The lycopod at our foot is a contemporary of the pine, and 
both made the carboniferous period. As if all these facts were not 
enough evidence that we are on sacred ground, the pine clothes itself 
in evergreen robes. Time seems to have no existence with it. 

The pine has two names, which also associate it with the Re- 
mote. The Latin pinus comes, it is thought, from the Celtic heUs 
pin, even to this day preserved in Ben-Lomond, etc. It means the 
mountain. Its name Hr is derived from fir, fyr, fire, still found in iire- 
wood. Indeed, a fir is fire in more than one respect. Of that 
later. 

The pine is the ideal pattern of a tree ; it is like a flame in shape, 
hence holy among Assyrians, etc. Its conical shape is admirably 
adapted for securing stability, etc. 

Now, about the pine cone. Let me mix my own observations 
with notes taken freely from Hugh MacMillan, Flammarion and 
other authors. 

There is one thing you want to fix in your mind, because it 
lies at the root of all movement, and that is the spiral. The earth de- 
scribes a spiral, and has never yet passed twice through the same 
point of space. With the solar system of ours, the earth moves 



90 



spirally, and in an oblique direction toward the constellation Her- 
cules. To you sensitives, do not these words "spiral" and "oblique" 
direction convey worlds of meaning? Do they not fascinate you? 
Do you not feel the mighty gyrational movements ol the universe? 
Do you not perceive^ — almost literally perceive — the law of force 
that determines the form of all organic bodies? The animal and 
vegetable kingdoms are built on that law; it appears in the cell, it 
can be traced in all the leaves in the calyx, coralla, stamen and seed 
vessels. The leaves are wound around the stem of a plant in a 
spiral; our own heart is a form of the spiral principle. The spiral 
is the form of rest; it gives greatest security, a maximum of con- 
tents with a minimum of exposure. 

Human history moves in cycles, viz., at every turn of the up- 
ward or forward movement of the world-spiral we come to repe- 
titions, but add a new element. Let me show these cycles in his- 
tory and individuals. You will learn quietness from them. It is 
so often difificult for us to realize that a forward movement is safe. 
We grow uneasy at the whirl of life, and fear the new in its destruc- 
tive force, because we do not know the law of progress. Progress 
is spiral, and we ought to come to rest with the knowledge that 
sucji is the law of force, and it is that law of force which works both 
good and evil; evil to him who doubts and fears, good to him who 
is free and courageous. The double truth veiled in the spiral 
movement — of which the pine cone is such a marvelous emblem — 
the ancients expressed by the famous phrase, "vortex rules." The 
fearful said — when the stability of things seemed gone, that Zeus 
had gone on a trip to Ethiopia and that vortex ruled, which tO' them 
meant, that all was swept away in the whirlpool of moving forces. 
Do not be afraid! Your ship cannot go down! No soul ever 
drowned! Much "impurity" comes up from the abyss and seem- 
ingly pollutes the clear waters. In our own day, the slimy weeds of 
"nastiness" come up, strangely mixed with new and beautiful forms. 
Many barren and lifeless fragments float upon the tides, giving evi- 
dence of miscarriages in some psychic sphere. 

However this may be, the interest centers in the activity of the 
Vortex, and it becomes a question of importance, if we can discern 
a rational, systematic and scientiHc basis for the currents. A basis, 
satisfactory alike to the scholar, the artist, the literary man, and 
the religious? Is the Vortex instinct with fresh life or does it 
mean death? 

I believe there is a sound and healthy life behind — even the 
erotic literature of to-day ; and I know, it can be shown, satisfactor- 
ily, what causes the declination of the erotic currents. 

In like manner I know there is truth as well as falsity behind 
the modern mind-cure methods, and theosophic vagaries ; the social- 
istic and industrial upheavals, etc. These forms look like lawless- 

91 



ness, but are not entirely so. I believe that vortex whirls both 
good and bad into our actual existence. 

When Aristophanes makes Socrates say that Zeus is no more 
and that Vortex rules, he utters neither a sarcasm nor a witticism, 
but, borrowing the philosophy from Anaxagoras, he gives a sym- 
bolical description of a law of existence. Zeus' absence means that 
apparent withdrawal of the principle of balance, which we observe 
historically at the end of every age or historical period. And the 
rule of vortex means the bubbling up of the new elements of the 
coming civilization. 

This I will try to show by examples. I will begin by describ- 
ing the Vortex, so admirably defined by Jacob Boehme. 

It is well known to all of you that the Old Testament speaks 
about God in anthrophomorphic and physical terms, which are shock- 
ing to those who think in more spiritual conceptions or mental forms. 
I think, however, a true theosophic study of the subjects will admit all 
three sides as necessary in the Deity. 

For my present purpose I shall dwell upon the physical defini- 
tions given in the Old Testament. 

God is fire and light, in a sense the most actual of all. He is a 
consuming iire and his wrath has flaming fire as its result. Scripture 
does not hesitate to name God not only the former of light, but also 
as creator of darkness (Is. 45. 7) and where it describes the manifesta- 
tion of the divine glory, it distinguishes in it darkness, fire, and light. 

It seems to me most interesting to observe this naturalism in the 
Bible, for it corresponds so perfectly to the notions of the old philoso- 
phers, the mystics and the mediaeval theosophists, all of which have 
been accused of an uncritical mixing up of God and the world in 
their pantheistic philosophy, 

Boehme starts from an observation comimon enough to us all. 
We find everywhere two qualities, one good and one evil, which in 
this world exist together in all powers and all creatures. In the oppo- 
sition of the two qualities arises a rotatory motion, or vortex, pro- 
ductive of all the forms of life which we know. This vortex is a 
fountain, whence flows actual existence. His description is too long 
to give here in details, but his imagery is grand. The two opposite 
forces he describes as fountain spirits inflaming themselves, frantic- 
ally foaming and tearing one another, when from amidst of them 
arises, through the violent conflict, the region of this world, partak- 
ing of the natures of both, wrath, fire and darkness. His imagery 
suggests the grand natural epic of Norse Mythology which sings 
about the fiery and violent Muspelheim and the nebular and dark 
Nifelheim, with the Ginungagap between them, out of which arises 
the actual world. 

Bo-ehme's vortex is always in motion, it is eternally rising, 
bubbling up, and bringing forth. Creation has never ceased. The 

92 



fire wheel is ever turning and casting tip rudiments of new forms, and 
ideas to new creations. From this vortex comes all the new life of 
to-day. 

May be, some of us, "see no divinity in grass, no life in dead 
stone, nor spirit in the air," but no matter, the unknown tongues are 
understood by the initiated, and even modern science has got a 
glimpse of the vortex. Its nebular theory assumes fiery gyrations 
and turbulent activity as preceding the present state of matter. 

Boehme has a predecessor in his philosophy, the old Greek, 
Anaxagoras, though he did not know it. 

Anaxagoras declared that genesis and decay in the strict sense 
are unthinkable, that genesis consists merely in the combination, and 
all decay in the separation, of substances already in existence. The 
motion with which a combination and separation takes place is 
rotatory. The whirling motion is never ending and is the central 
moving factor throughout creation. 

Of course, this dry description does not call up before the mind's 
eye any very living picture, but it means very much to him who can 
throw himself into it, and by means of his image-making powers can 
perceive the pulse of the universe. 

If I may be allowed a sudden descent from Universals to Particu- 
lars, I would say that the pulsation might be compared to the phe- 
nomena of volcanic eruptions: the expansive force of great masses 
of imprisoned and uprus'hing volumes of vapors forcing a passage for 
themselves through solid rock-masses, lead to shocks, jars and dis- 
placements, which again give rise to what is known as earthquakes, 
and finally terminate in flaming eruptions. 

These shocks, jars, and displacements, usually follow one an- 
other in regular succession, almost like the throbbing of the pulse. If 
we throw ofif childish fear at such an occasion and approach nature 
in confidence, we shall readily feel the beating heart of that fire world 
which lies at our feet, and be initiated in the mysteries of vortex. 

If we will understand and feel that Presence 

"Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 
lAjnd the round ocean, and the living air. 
And the blue sky, and in the mind of Man," 

we must arouse our dull senses and come away from the conven- 
tional schools and descend with Faust to the Mothers, the fountain 
spirits ; then shall we be "immersed in the ocean of vision" and behold 
"the form of His beauty." 

Such is the teaching of the Mystic, to whom Nature is instinct 
with divine life. He recognizes the impress of the divine face upon 
every atom. Nature to him is a process by which the Absolute realizes 
itself, unfolds itself, and — infolds itself: vortex. 

There is another congenial spirit, I like to mention: Heraclit. 
He too is one who attained the vision and yet lived to tell the tale. 

93 



He does not so much describe the vortex itself as the stream that 
flows from vortex, that never ending- fullness, which casts up upon 
the shores of life the strangest splendors together with crippled and 
unhealthy children. He sees the eternal flow, the flux, and unin- 
terrupted movement and transformation; a stream always spreading 
and yet again collecting itself. 

Anaxagoras looks upon Vortex as an eternal chant. Boehme 
descends to its bottom and describes its turnings, while Heraclit fol- 
lows the magic tread from the abyss into this world. In all three we 
may follow "from link to link," "the soul of all the worlds," the Mother 
power, vortex. 

I have now given you so'me philosophy on spirals. I shall next 
show the historical cycles. 

This theory of cycles, of which I now speak, is nothing new, 
it was taught by various Greek philosophers and by the theosophists 
of the Middle Ages. 

Historical cycles require either 250, 500, 700 or 1,000 years to 
rotate. That is, at the end of so many years we find that events 
occur, which answer perfectly to the state that exists when "Zeus is 
no more and Vortex rules." Great catastrophes terminate the past 
and violent upheavals begin the new ag'e. Darkness, Death and 
Despair settle low upon the land and the nations tremble. Then 
comes forth after the Ragnarockur, a new world, amidst great pain 
and anxiety and mostly always in bloodshed. 

I will describe an "historical wave" or a cycle of 250 years' 
duration. 

We begin in China 2,000 B. C., in the "golden age" of the empire, 
the age of philosophy and reforms. 

Two hundred and fifty years later, or 1750 B. C, the Mongolians 
establish a powerful empire in Central Asia. 

Two hundred and fifty years later, or 1500 B. C, Egypt rises 
from its temporary deg-radation and extends its sway over many parts 
of Europe and Asia. 

Twelve hundred and fifty B, C, or 250 years afterward, the wave 
reaches and crosses over to Eastern Europe, filling it with the spirit 
of the Argonautic Expeditions, and dies out in 1000 B. C. at the siege 
of Troy. 

Look up these dates in history and you will find, as I said, that 
night settled for a time upon the earth and that a new day broke 
forth only through violent commotions. 

About 1000 B. C. vortex turns up a second historical wave in 
Central Asia and culminates toward the year 750 B, C, when the 
Scythians leave their steppes and sweep down upon the adjoining 
countries, destroying the old and breaking- forcibly an opening for 
the new world life. Two hundred and fifty years later, or about 500 
B. C, an epoch of splendor begins in Ancient Persia. From thence 

94 



the wave moves on still further West and in 250 B. C. reaches Greece 
in her highest state of culture and civilization, the mistress of the 
world of Beauty and Spirit. Two hundred and fifty years later bring 
us to the birth of the Christ and the apogee of the Roman empire. 
The historical student will find less difBculty in verifying these data 
than those of the former historical wave. He will easily see that at 
the given dates the respective nations and kingdoms play the repre- 
sentative parts. He will also easily recognize the terrible "woes" 
and "cups of wraths" which the new births cost to bring forth. 

At about the beginning of our era, vortex is again active and a 
third historical wave sweeps on from the far East. After many revo- 
lutions, about this time, China forms once more a powerful empire, 
both politically, commercially, socially and in the world of arts and 
sciences. Two hundred and fifty years later, the wheel of existence 
forces the Huns upon the scene — and their name is devastation and 
crude might; while it raises up a new and powerful Persian Kingdom 
in 500 A. D.; a Byzantine empire in 750; and a second Roman 
tyranny, the Papacy, in the year 1000; in which year it reaches a most 
extraordinary degree of power and wealth. 

At the same time vortex starts a fourth stream from the ever 
rotating whirlpool called vortex, approaches from the Orient, where 
China is once more flourishing. Two hundred and fifty years later, 
or 1250 A. D,, the Mongolian wave from Central Asia has over- 
flowed and devastated enormous tracts of land, Russia included. 
With fatal necessity, we find the ever turning wheel, in 1500 raise the 
Ottoman empire in might and abandons the Balkan peninsula to its 
sway. About this time Russia frees itself from the Tartar and in 
1750 rises to unexpected height and glory under Catharina II; and 
who knows but that Napoleon's prophecy may come true that at the 
end of the fixed 250 years or at the year 2000 the Muscovite may rule 
Europe? At any rate, in that year 2000 we may expect great histori- 
cal changes — and no doubt we see now the beginning of the end. 
Seventeen hundred and eighty-nine and the French revolution 
are no doubt the key to the present situations and they contain the 
germs for the coming cataclysms and the incoming of the "Millen- 
nium." 

Here, then, you have a continuous series of cycles. To see fully 
the new elements that come into history you need only to write these 
cycles upon an enlarged copy of the historical diagram given you 
in the Spring lectures. 

All this wonderful spiral philosophy you can see in a pine cone. 
The pine cone shows it all. You can therefore not wonder that the 
ancient nature worshipers revered the cone and that it was an em- 
blem of life in so many mythologies. 

The spiral is the circle infinitely continued. The circle returns 
upon itself, ending where it began, but the spiral has neither begin- 

95 



fling nor end. It is a cosmological law. It is an emblem of eternity. 
You, who use the circle as such an emblem, are quite in error. 

The great lesson the cone illustrates is the simplicity of nature, 
the multitude and boundless variety of results, which she educes 
from one self-evident law, a law affecting the stars, the heart of 
man, history, etc. 

Cut a cone horizontally, yo-u get a circle; cut it diagonally, 
you get an ellipse or hyperbola. Divide a cone through the middle, 
from top to bottom, and the inner surface of each half is a triangle. 
In that half which arises from the cutting a cone from top to bottom 
you get the shape and the formation of a flame. Light a candle 
and place it alongside of such a cone and you see in each the 
four divisions of fire-life. Symbolically the flame and the cone 
are synonymous. If you see in the cone the fire-life of the soul, 
you can also understand why I am so enthusiastic about a cone. 

It is to be believed that all the orbs of heaven have similar 
numerical relations to each other as the spiral arrangement of 
the parts of plants, and that the whole universe is arranged on 
the same principle which we observe in the pine cone. 

Yes, all things 
Are numbered in a calculation far 
Beyond the reach of Newton, or Laplace. 

"God geometrizes incessantly." "The life of God is mathe- 
matical." 

I beg you to go into the woods "to think the thoughts of 
God." By means of a pine-cone you can ascend to the Deity. 
The pine wood is the most lively cathedral for Nature worship. In 
Nature the mind of God meets the mind of man. In the woods, 
by holding a cone in your hand, your own number will be revealed. 
In the woods you stand on holy ground. 

"Thou hast ordered all things in measure, and number, and 
weight." — Wisdom, XI, 20. 



96 



Love is the cause and aim of all things. 



O dear God above 
This beautiful but sad perplexing earth, 
Pity the hearts that know — or know not love ! 

E. W. Wilcox. 



Plato says that Love is the interpreter and inediator between things 
human and things divine. 



97 



EIGHTH LECTURE. 

Isidor Orient said truly: "Love is the ladder on which we 
climb to godliness." But what did he mean by love? Love can 
be both life and death, both crown and curse, both physical, intel- 
lectual and spiritual. 

Love is the source whence flows all knowledge of God, Free- 
dom and Immortality. 

Read Thomas a Kempis on- love. Read Algernon Sidney 
on love. But, better than reading, is to love Love, for many les- 
sons on Love can only be learned that way. Love is not simply 
vibration, not simply the ripple marks of waves on the shore — 
wiped out by the next wave. There is something physical about 
all love, but love is not physical. The essence of love is purity. 
Love is certainly the great instrument of nature, but it is informed 
by God. Love is the deus ex machina of all things, even the gods 
are subject to love. 

With these words by way of definition, let me read you a 
paper on Love. 

If it be true, as Emerson said, that "all mankind loves a lover," 
I presume that it will be true that all mankind likes to hear talk 
about Love. 

Mention the word Love, and, strange it is, but something, I 
know not what, touches a responsive chord in every generous 
heart. Yes, I may say with the poet, 

"All thoughts, all passions, all delights, 

Whatever stirs this mortal frame. 
All are but ministers of love 

And feed his sacred flame." 

Certain it is that when once the heart has opened itself to love^ 
love returns the favor without stint of measure, for love then opens 
the world to the heart. Indeed, love is a magian and knows the 
secret of the transmutation of the metal hearts of men. Where 
love rules, the old things pass away and all things become new. 
How different do the hills, the valleys, the forests and the ocean 
look to a lover and to one without rest and peace. Love invests 
nature with a new glory, throws an enchantment over everything. 
The all absorbing passion colors every vision, suspends the rules 
of logic and stimulates intellect to new discoveries. Love once 
turned a blacksmith to a painter. 

99 

tofC. 



To complete the picture! There is one other side! I have 
a remark to make against that of Emerson's that "all man- 
kind loves a lover." Lovers are selfish. Lord Beacons- 
field said truly: "To a man who is in love, the thought 
•of another woman is uninteresting, if not repulsive." That's a 
selfish sentiment. To lovers, society must give way. They have 
no eyes nor ears for anybody but themselves. Every book they 
read and recommend one another has a new charm — to them. 
But what about everybody else? The words they speak acquire 
a new meaning — to them. But what about the dictionary? No 
•doubt her song surpasses all other music — to him. But does it 
electrify anybody else? I will not question that her presence in- 
spires — him. But is her presence a deep moral education? A true 
woman, whether developed or not, is attracted to a powerful man; 
that is correct and as it ought to be according to all laws of the 
universe; but does that attraction enlarge her character, does it 
give her courage and confidence to trust her passion? If it does, 
very well; it will deepen and strengthen all her womanly qualities; 
but if it does not, she becomes a disgrace to herself and a scandal 
to society. 

Well, then, let this be enough for the dark side. 

Years ago Hortense Schneider, the "Grand Duchess of Gerold- 
stein," took the part of Boulotte in "Barbe-Bleu," and used to 
eat real cherries, even though they were out of season and had 
to be brought from afar at great expense. Every evening she 
would toss a cherry-stone to the audience, and he who secured 
it would preserve it as a precious souvenir. It was the fashion 
with the men to mount such stones in rings, etc. A certain gen- 
tleman, who was so happy as to catch one of the stones, instead 
of mounting it in a ring, planted it in his garden. In a few years 
lie had a vigorous tree and soon choice fruits, a basket of which 
was thenceforth sent to the prima donna every year by her admirer. 

A genuine passion may be treated as a precious jewel and 
mounted on the conventional ring, thus becoming an ornament 
of life without vitalizing it It may also be planted deep in the 
recesses of the heart and become nourishment for the soul. 

Only once in a lifetime do we become possessed by an ab- 
sorbing passion. When it comes, let it be accepted! If we trust 
a pure passion, we shall find that it deepens and strengthens all 
human qualities. A great love develops the womanly in woman 
and the manly in man. When it rises above sensuous passion 
it touches immortality and lifts its bearers into the ideal realms of 
Mind, Heart and Nature at large. 

I said only once in a lifetime do we become possessed by an 
absorbing passion. When it comes, let it be accepted. If we 
turn it away we do it at the peril of our lives. 

100 



A great love triumphs over death. The author of "Canticle" 
tells us that "love is stronger than death." 

In the beautiful drama "Ion" (by Talfourd), when the noble 
Greek is about to surrender his life to the demands of inexorable 
fate, his beloved Clementhe asks if they shall meet again. The 
response is: "I have asked that dreadful question of the hills 
that look eternal — of the clear streams that flow forever — of the 
stars among whose fields of azure my raised spirit walked in 
glory. All are dumb. But as I gaze upon thy livmg face, I feel 
that there is something in love that rises above its beauty and 
cannot wholly perish. We shall meet again, Clementhe." A great 
love triumphs over death. 

Love is said to be strong as death. Molinos explains this by 
saying that the love spoken of is* divine love, and, mystic as he 
was, he goes into ecstasy at the mere mention of divine love. "The 
fire of divine love burns the soul," he says; intoxicates it and fills 
it with unsatisfiableness. Love is said to be strong as death because 
it kills as death does — everything earthly. 

But — I am talking about Love, assuming that we all know 
what Love is. Perhaps I am wrong in that. 

I know of no definition I would like to give. Love is too mani- 
fold' and deep to be inclosed in the casket of a definition. I will 
therefore avoid definitions and make a few distinctions. 

We are all familiar with the classical gods Aphrodite- Venus 
and Eros, Amor, or Cupid. Which are their dominions and how 
are they related? 

Eros is the universal love — celestial love — the bond of attrac- 
tion, or, as the modern world would say, the law of attraction 
that binds the worlds together. He is one of the oldest of gods, 
coeval with Night, the Abyss. 

He is no son of Aphrodite-Venus, nor is he merely Cupid. 
It was the later poets who made him son of Aphrodite-Venus and 
drew universal love down to become a mere intrigue and a naughty 
boy going about shooting arrows at innocent girls' hearts. This 
idea and office is Eros unworthy. 

It is Eros that in the main I speak about in this paper. Yet 
Eros, universal love, is not out of connection with Love, as we 
commonly speak of it. 

When we say that love is blind we mean, or ought to mean, 
passionate love, Venus; for the ancients attributed reason and wis- 
dom to Eros. 

The ancients that lived before the Greeks and Romans wor- 
shipped Eros with great solemnity. They did not think lightly 
of him nor did they use him for a play toy. To them he was 
ruler both of the dead and the living and had no parents. 

The later art knew of two Cupids, two Eros: Eros, Love, 

101 



and Anteros, Love requited. The two Cupids with the dolphin 
at the foot of the statue of Venus of Medici are supposed to be Eros 
and Anteros. 

Porphyry, the Neoplatonist, tells a pretty legend. Aphrodite 
complained to Themis that her son (N. B. a false conception) con- 
tinued always a child. She was told that the reason was his 
solitariness. If he had a brother companion he would grow. 
Anteros was soon afterward born, and Eros found his wings 
enlarge and his person and strength increase. But this was only 
when Anteros was near; for if he was at a distance, Eros found 
himself to shrink to his original dimensions. 

This legend is as profound as most legends. Experience all over 
the world proves it true. Only love requited can grow and develop. 
Love in solitude is death. Love unrequited withers and goes 
down in suffering. Love unrequited is unhappiness indeed, for 
it has lost all possibilities for existence. 

Though we know of two Eros only, from art representations 
of a late age and from Porphyry's story, the conception is very 
old; it is, in fact, coeval with creation. The two loves condition 
one another. 

Love in all its forms hails from Eros or IS Eros. Love, thus 
understood, is indeed the Master Passion, and nothing too exalted 
can be said about it. 

It is Eros that Emilia Viviani speaks about in that magnifi- 
cent apotheosis, which was the inspiration to Shelley's Epipsy- 
chidion. For your benefit I give it here from the edition of Forman, 
according to Medwin's account.* 

•See Forman's ed. of Shelley's poetical works, vol. 2, pages 424-428. 



102 



THE TRUE LOVE. 



"Love! soul of the world! Love, the source of all that is good, 
of all that is lovely! What would the universe be, failing thy 
creative flame? A horrible desert. But far from this, it is the sole 
shadow of all goodness, of all loveliness, and of all felicity. Of 
that love I speak, that possessing itself of all our soul, of our entire 
will, sublimes and raises one, above every other individual of the 
same species; and all energetic, all pure, all divine, inspires none 
but actions that are magnanimous, and worthy of the followers of 
that sweet and omnipotent deity. The lover! no! he is not con- 
founded with the herd of men, he does not degrade his soul, but 
elevates, drives on, and crowns it with light at the smile of the 
divinity. He becomes a supereminent being, and as such alto- 
gether incomprehensible. The universe — the vast universe, no 
longer capable of bounding his ideas, his affections, vanishes from 
before his sight. The soul of him who loves disdains restraint — 
nothing can restrain it. It launches itself out of the created, and 
creates in the infinite a world for itself, and for itself alone, how 
different from this obscure and fearful den! — is in the continued 
enjoyment of the sweetest ecstasy, is truly happy. All that has no 
relation to the object of its tenderness — ^all that is not that adored 
object, appears an insignificant point to his eyes. But where is 
he, susceptible of such love? Where? Who is capable of inspir- 
ing it? Oh love! I am all love. I cannot exist without love ! My 
soul — my mortal fame — all my thoughts and affections, all that 
which I am, transfigures itself into one sole sentiment of love, and 
that sentiment will last eternally. Without love, life would become 
to me insupportable — the world an inhospitable and desolate des- 
ert, only haunted by spectres, so terrible to my sight, that to fly 
from them, I could, cast myself into the mysterious but tranquil 
abode of death. Ah! yes! I prefer the sweet pains of love, the con- 
tinual throbbing that accompany, the fear inseparable from it, to a 
to me stupid calm, and to all the pleasures that can supply the 
gratification of all other passions, all the goods (if without love there 
can be any good) which the world prizes and covets. 

But how art thou profaned, O Love! What outrages do not 
the children of the^ earth commit in thy name divine! Often and 
often to affections the most illicit, to actions the most vile and 
degrading, to crime — ah! execrable iniquity! when even to crime 

103 



itself they give the name of Love, and dare to tax it with the com- 
mission of crime! Alas! unheard-of blasphemy. Impious and sac- 
rilegious that ye are, you not only feel it not, but comprehend not 
even what the word love signifies. Love has no wish but for virtue 
— Love inspires virtue — Love is the source of actions the most mag- 
nanimous, of true felicity — Love is a fire that bums and destroys 
not, a mixture of pleasure and of pain, a pain that brings pleasure, 
an essence eternal, spiritual, infinite, pure, celestial. This is the 
true, the only love — 'that sentiment which can alone entirely fill up 
the void of the soul — that horrible void, worse than death. Every 
other sentiment dissimilar from this, than this less pure, deserves 
not the sacred name of Love; and they who impiously profane and 
defile it, shall be punished by that most mighty of Divinities and 
shall merit eternal perdition. Where the soul that is feelingly alive 
seeks for love, and finds itself in the abyss of desolation, and where 
the heart is divested of this sweet fire, or finds faithless the object 
of its tenderness, — that miserable soul, let it seek (at least I so counsel 
it), let it seek, I say, its refuge in the tomb, and feed upon it and its 
last consolation." 

This admirable piece of eloquence was perhaps the source of the 
inspiration of the Epipsychidion, a poem that combines the pathos 
of the Vita Nuova of Dante with the enthusiastic tenderness of 
Petrarch. The Epipsychidion is the apotheosis of love — Emilia a 
mere creature of his imagination, in whom he idealized Love in all 
its intensity of passion. His feeling toward the Psyche herself was, 
as may be seen by letter LX of his correspondence, a purely 
Platonic one. He calls the Epipsychidion a mystery, and says "as 
to real flesh and blood, you know that I do not deal in those articles. 
Expect nothing human or earthly from me," etc. His love for 
Emilia, if such it can in the general acceptation of the term be 
called, was of the kind described in the Symposium by Socrates. . . . 
Shelley thought that to pass from one state of existence to another, 
was not death, but a new development of life ; that we must love as 
we live, through all eternity; and that they who have not this per- 
suasion, know nothing of life, nothing of love; that they who do 
not make the universe a fountain whence they may literally draw 
new life and love, know nothing of one or the other, and are not 
fated to know anything of it. The words are not his, but they 
shadow out what I heard him better express. 

This poem, or rhapsody, incomprehensible to the general class 
of readers, from a defect in the common organ of perception for the 
ideas of which it treats, fell dead from the press. I believe that not 
a copy of it was sold, not a single review noticed it — one of the 
many proofs that the public ear is deaf to the finest accords of the 
lyre. 

104 



Aphrodite-Venus is a figure in classical mythology alto- 
gether remote from the exalted Eros, I have spoken of. 

Aphrodite is natural fruitfulness, or, Nature's productive 
power, hence the Romans identified the Greek Aphrodite with their 
own Venus, which was the goddess of Spring. 

Only in the sense of "natural fruitfulness" is she a love goddess. 
She is rather a goddess of Beauty. Spring beautifies everything. 
When the later poets make Cupid (Amor) the son ol Aphrodite, 
they understand no more by 'him Universal Love, but simply that 
passion, which natural beauty inspires. 

The noblest conception one can get of Venus is the Venus Vic- 
trix, the victorious Venus, and Venus Urania, the heavenly Venus. 

No paper about love is complete without saying something 
about Platonic love. I must therefore also say something. I will 
open the subject with a clipping from Scribner's Magazine, where 
a frivolous writer, under the heading, "The Point of View," says: 

"Love between women and men was not invented for the en- 
tertainment of philosophers, but largely for domestic purpo'ses ; and 
if platonic love is to have anything better than a hazardous and un- 
stable existence, the conditions of it must be such that it may 
pro,sper without conflict with Nature's more important ends. Thus 
we see why platonic friendships between young people who might 
marry do not endure. Such couples get married, and their friend- 
ship merges into a more durable sentiment, or else one of them 
marries someone else, and then it lapses. At least it should lapse, 
for if it does not, it not only militates against peace in a family, 
but it tends to keep the unmarried platonist from going about his 
business and finding himself a mate, according to Nature's design. 
It is true that there are women, and young women at that, who 
can contrive for a time to maintain a husband and one or two si- 
multaneous platonic intimates. But in such cases one of three things 
happens : either the wife makes her husband happy and her platonic 
aidmirers miserable, or she makes her friends happy and her hus- 
band miserable, or she makes them all miserable. If by any 
chance or miracle oi talent she seems to make them all happy, she 
makes society miserable, because it cannot see how she does it. 
And when society is miserable it talks, until finally it breaks up 
the arrangement. She is bound to fail, and the reason does not 
lie in any defect in her, but in the fact that her purpose is contrary 
t)o the economy of Nature, which has provided barely men enough 
to go around, and does not permit a woman who has a man of her 
own to monopolize other men with impunity. Every marriageable 
man besides her husband that any woman absorbs, involves the 
waste of some other woman's opportunities, and Nature abhors 
waste with a proverbial antipathy." 

This is frivolity. This utilitarian writer is "away ofif." The 

105 



sweet passion is unknown to him. The stories of Petrarch and 
Laura, Dante and Beatrice have no charm for him. His heart has 
not been "touched." The "beatific vision" has no meaning- to him. 
Let me answer his first Hnes by a little poem of Owen Mere- 
dith's: 

A poet loved a star, 

And to it whispered nightly: 
"Being so fair! why art thou love so far? 
Or why so coldly shine, who shinest so brightly? 
O Beauty woo'd and unpossessed, 
O might I to this beating breast 
But clasp thee once and then die blest." 

That star her poet's love, 

So wildly warm, made human. 
And leaving for his salie her heaven above, 
His star stoop'd earthward and became a woman. 
"Thou who hast woo'd and hast possessed, 
My lover, answer, which was best, 
The star's beam, or the woman's breast?" 

"I miss from heaven," the man replied, 

"A light that drew my spirit to it." 
And to the man the woman sigh'd, 

"I miss from earth a poet." 

That's the answer to "the point of view," who has not taken the 
"point of view" correctly. 

Whatever raptures Venus vulgivata may cause us, while we are 
young, we turn sooner or later from her and her gratifications and 
follow Venus Urania. When Venus Urania, the star, descends and 
becomes Venus vulgivata, we miss her from heaven. No light any 
more draws our Spirit upward. 

Venus vulgivata and Venus Urania are the two poles of the same 
power. The one degrading. The other exalting. As in the mag- 
netic bar, the middle is the point of indifference. We must profess 
the one or the other. Whichever we do worship for the time bemg, 
the opposite will cause a reaction and a healthy equilibrium. As 
in the magnet, our positive and negative forces will readjust them- 
selves at once and find a new center. In this reaction and new 
equilibrium lies our salvation. This illustration contains the mys- 
tic key to all love. 

It was an ancient Jewish custom of marriage for the wedded 
pair to drink from the same crystal cup and then break it in pieces. 
A wonderful symbol of love, active and transitoriness! 

That custom also symbolized the frailty of earthly possessions 
and the transitiveness of earthly felicity. But, no matter how tran- 
sitory, if the education remain after the cup has been dashed upon 
the earth, it is, after all as the Laureate sang: 

"Better to have loved and lost, 
Than never to have loved at all." 

106 



QUESTIONS AND REMARKS. 

The last meeting was given up to Questions and Remarks, some 
of which are here reproduced, together with other matter. 



The Lecturer: It has been suggested that I should ask ques- 
tions this afternoon rather than continue the subject of Nature- 
worship because, as I said, we ought to be outdoors for that sub- 
ject. We can very well drop the subject now, for in a few months, 
in May or early in June, I am coming back. It has so been ar- 
ranged. When I come back we will go into the country and study 
and worship together in the way we did at Greenacre last summer. 
Let me tell you how we did on one day, a day never to be forgotten 
by anybody who partook in the excursion to Mt. Salvat. 

Some few of us arose with the sun and met him with greetings 
of joy on Observation Hill. Jehanghir Cola, the Parsee from Bom- 
bay, a true and real representative of fire worship, led the devotion. 
Facing the Sun, just as he had arisen above the horizon, Cola 
addressed to him the following hymn : 

Praise be on thee, amplest of stars! 

Revolving in the abundant love and greatness of God, 

Abiding in the midst of perfect order, 

Author of the povrers of the senses, 

Cause of whatever is produced anew, and creator of the seasons! 

In the circle of thy sphere, which is without rent, which neither assumeth 

A new shape nor putteth off an old one, nor taketh a straight course, 

Thou, maker of the Day, art most near to the luster of God. 

Thou art a symbol of his grandeur, 

A beam of his glory; 

Thou art as a proof of him upon his servants. 

Clothing the stars with the garment of thy splendor. 

Through the medium of thy active soul, which beameth with glory, 

1 seek him whose shadow thou art, — 

The Lord that giveth harmony to worlds. 

The Limit Establisher of all. 

Light of lights! 

That he may illuminate my soul with pure light, adorable knowledge, 

lofty excellence: 
And make me one t)f those who are nigh unto him, who are filled with 

his love! 

The newness of the experience, the solemnity of the occasion, 

107 



never before partaken in by the majority of those present, the fresh- 
ness of the morning- and the glorious landscape in the early morning 
light, so thrilled them and all, that a new element entered their lives 
and controls them to this day. This world looked new. A new love, a 
new understanding, a new feeling had arisen. The occasion was so 
new and strange and the influence so powerful, that nobody said any- 
thing. Silently the company broke up and went home for breakfast. 

At 9 a. m. the carriages were ready for those who wanted to 
drive, and the young started off on foot to Mt. Salvat, some carrying 
their lunches, others depending upon supplies sent over by wagon. 
In groups we walked over Observ^ation Hill, through green fields and 
shady lanes, enjoying the magnificent scenery of the upper Pisca- 
taqua. You must not think that I am exaggerating in my descrip- 
tion of the Greenacre scenery. I am not giving vent to subjective 
impressions. The Greenacre landscape is the only one, of the thou- 
sands I have seen in the various parts of the world, that has come near 
upsetting my philosophy. I have told you in the lectures of this 
course, that Nature is external mind and that mind is external 
Nature. I hold it to be so. I cannot see it to be otherwise. But 
at Greenacre I am an Aristotelian. There it seems to me that all 
things exist with a nature and characteristics of their own. These 
things communicate their nature and characteristics to me and I 
give them nothing. In the presence of that landscape I receive im- 
pressions which are a part of the landscape. I do not see beauty in 
the landscape; the landscape itself is beautiful. The aspect of it is 
part of its nature. I do not read "the father's face" into it, the 
landscape is idyllic, a little eidullion, "a little image." The first even- 
ing I spent at Greenacre, I watched the sun set from "Sunrise Camp,'' 
and it happened to me as it did to Wm. Blake, I did not see zvith my 
eyes, but through my eyes came to my soul the essence of that Golden 
Ball, and I heard it as "Glory to God on High" — "Peace on Earth" — 
"Good-will among Men." It was July 5th, 1896, never to be for- 
gotten. It was a gorgeous sunset. All the heavens and the earth 
were still ; the fleeting colors of roseate hues and ashen gray played in 
incalculable series of mutations. Behind the passing scenes, the 
glorious orb, incomparable emblem of Being, sank majestically 
down behind the distant White Hills, and before the scenes, as if in 
midair, I felt the Becoming. My reason could not arrest the move- 
ment, my understanding could not declare what it perceived. The 
glorious tints, the melting into one another, the lack of fixedness or 
duration, the deep, yet eloquent and sonorous silence spoke from 
Heaven and whispered 

Eternal Harmony. 

As I have said elsewhere, Greenacre is a revelation. The Great 
Being, self-luminous and self-reflected, lies upon the surface of every- 
thing at Greenacre. In the silksoft grass of the camp, the 

108 



"Kneippers" step upon the velvety garment of the great deity. The 
pebbles on the river shore are diamonds from his crown of glory. 
The weird nightly scenery and the magic around the Druid Stone 
bring you back to ages, when the gods wandered upon earth. When 
you rise from the cool waves of the Piscataqua, you rise out of the 
quiet place of your own soul, where the universe is reflected, and you 
are Anadyomene, infinite Love, begetting infinite Beauty. — There is 
God-communion and Nature — communion at. Greenacre. 

But, to return to my narrative. 

When we arrived on Mt. Salvat and the various groups were 
gathered, I called them to order and sent the company divided in 
various divisions all over the hill. Some to study the northern 
sides of the trees and make observations on the relative growths, 
south and north; some were sent to observe the route the bees take 
back to their hive; some were to watch the flowers to see them turn 
after the sun; some were to read the formations of the clouds, etc. 
They were all to report at 2 130 what they had observed or discovered. 
While these observers were away, the young people had their "pic- 
nic" and the old their private naps or talks, or lunches. After all 
observations had been reported and notes made, most of the serious 
members ol the company gathered with me in a shady place and I ad- 
dressed them on the Father-influence of a mountain and told them 
how the sun is the civilizer of man. When the audience had realized 
their duty to worth-ship Father Sun, I asked them to arise, and, pre- 
serving the square in which they had been sitting, according to their 
color characteristics, to walk absolutely silently into an adjoining 
group of pines, there to assemble around a mighty stone found there. 
All walked triumphantly but silently into the wood and placed them- 
selves as requested. In silence they all centered their thoughts upon 
the Sun. The occasion was solemn, the newness did not disturb any. 
When we had come to perfect rest around the stone we all joined 
hands in fellowship, and I addressed the universal powers, as far as I 
remember now, thus: 

"Father Sun, great God of the universe, though Thou art not our 
God, we revere Thee, we worship Thee ! Thou hast made us in the 
forms in which we now present ourselves before Thee! We thank 
Thee! This stone, around which we gather, is petrified life, once 
emanated from Thee! These trees, under whose shadow we stand 
and whose cool breezes refresh us and protect us against thy fiery 
darts, are also of Thee! In the presence of these universal wit- 
nesses we renew our allegiance to the Great, Good and Beautiful! 
Be Thou, O Sun a witness to our words; ye trees carry our message 
of heart-uplifts to all organic existence, and thou, stone, lie here upon 
this mountain till the end of days as an immovable tablet upon 
which we each for himself inscribe our vows !" 

Involuntarily the audience burst out in the now famous Green- 

< 109 



acre Uplift "Omnipresence manifest Th}^self in me," and the 
emotion manifested was truly deep. 

After a brief silence I called upon Dr. G. P. Wiksell to say 
something. Like an old Druid he stepped forward to the stone and 
renewed his vows. Cola came next and read a prayer from the 
Avesta. 

The audience were as if spellbound. After a silence Miss Far- 
mter started a final "Omnipresence," that seemed never to come to 
end, so deeply touched were all, and it repeated itself in all possible 
modulations and keys. 

Not a word was said when we finally parted. Only this was 
remarked: "How singular; a pine cone lies on the very top of the 
stone !" In view of the lecture on the Pine cone w'hich that audience 
had heard a few days ago, it was rather singular, that Nature for this 
occasion had provided a candle for our altar. Is anything singular? 

In quietness and peace we all walked to the western slope of the 
hill to see the sun set. Ah! what a meaning that sunset had to all! 
Scattered around among the pines, the low-voiced prayer "Omnipres- 
ence" arose from all hearts, only interrupted by Cola's reading the 
same hymn to the sun, read in the morning. The singing continued 
till the sun had sunk i8 degrees below the horizon and the last roseate 
hues had turned gray. Then all arose and went home. 

Next Spring, we will attempt to have a similar day somewhere 
in the neighborhood of Chicago. 

Friends, excursions like the one described will do you more 
good than many lectures. You get dyspepsia and you have indiges- 
tion now from all the intellectual food you get. You get too much 
of it. 

Before bidding you "Good Bye" or rather au revoir I wish to 
say a word or two about the way you should look upon that which I 
have said. I have not attempted to instruct you, I have rather 
spoken personally. I have let myself be open to you and have given 
experiences. I have tried to speak from that fourth plane, I spoke 
of in my first address. In thus giving expression to my feelings, 
sensations and perceptions, I have laid myself open to many criti- 
cisms, I know. But I have trusted myself to you and do so now in 
going away. I have done this because I wish that you in the future 
would ask all your lecturers to do likewise. Make them be personal. 
Let them give their own experiences and not something they have 
read in books and only poorly digested. Even initiations, as now un- 
derstood, are no warrant for the truth. You can not be sure of the 
life there is in a teaching, unless it is given you by one who has lived 
it, by one who teaches from experiences and thus vouches for the 
teaching. The teacher must trust you and you must trust the 
teacher. In soul life no abstract teachings are worth much. We 
learn and we teach by Presence. The spell of presence is the ideal 

110 



education. If you want learning' and nothing else, go to the books, 
and 3^ou can go there alone. But if you want education, viz., to be 
brought out of yourself and into your highest Self, you want the lov- 
ing presence of a companion, a fellow pilgrim. Hereafter, call only 
fellow-pilgrims to lecture to you. Living power begets living con- 
victions, and convictions move the world. Only by such methods 
will your Ministry be a ministry and a blessing. 

Au revoir till Spring! May the Blessing of the Great Love be 
upon us all. 



Ill 



APPENDIX TO LECTURES ON NATURE- 
WORSHIP. 

We have heard so much about "the order of nature," "law of 
nature," etc., as appHed to morals and society, that I think I do 
you a favor by reprinting the most interesting part of the famous 
Volney's "The Law of Nature," which was a catechism for French 
citizens. 

Q. What is the law of Nature? 

A. It is the constant and regular order of action by which 
God governs the universe; an order which his wisdom presents to 
the senses and to the reason of men, as an equal and common rule 
for their actions, to guide them, without distinction of country or 
of sect, toward perfection and happiness. 

Q. Do such orders exist in Nature? What does the word 
nature signify? 

A. The word nature bears three different senses : 

I St, It signifies the universe, the material world; in this first 
sense they say, "the beauty of Nature, the richness of Nature;" 
i. e., the objects in the heavens and on the earth exposed to our 
sight. 

2dly, It signifies the power that animates, that moves the uni- 
verse, considering it as a distinct being, such as the soul is to the 
body. In this second sense they say, "the intentions of Nature, 
the incomprehensible secrets of Nature." 

3dly, It signifies the operations of that power on each 
being, or on each class of beings; and in this third sense they say, 
the nature of man is an enigma; every being acts according to its 
nature. 

Wherefore, as the actions of each being, or of each species 
of beings are subjected to constant and general rules, which cannot 
be infringed without interrupting and troubling the general or 
particular order, those rules of actions and of motions are called the 
natural laws, or laws of Nature. 

Q. What are the characters of the law of Nature? 

A. There can be assigned ten principal ones. 

Q. Which is the first? 

A. To be inherent to the existence of things, and consequently 
primitive and anterior to every other law; so that all those which 
men have received, are only imitations of it, and their perfection 

113 



is ascertained by the resemblance they bear to this primordial 
model. 

Q. Which is the second? 

A. To be derived immediately from God to be presented by 
him to each man ; whereas all other laws are presented to us by men, 
who may be either deceived, or deceivers. 

Q. Which is the third? 

A. To be common to all times, and to all countries: that is 
to say, one and universal. 

Q. Is no other law universal? 

A. No: for no other law is agreeable, or applicable to all 
the people of the earth ; all of them are local and accidental, originat- 
ing from circumstances of places and of persons; so that if such a 
man had not existed, such an event had not taken place — such a 
law would never have been made. 

Q. Which is the fourth character? 

A. To be uniform and invariable. 

Q. Is no other law uniform and invariable? 

A. No: for what is good and virtue according to one, is evil 
and vice according to another; and what one and the same law 
approves of at one time, it often condemns afterwards. 

Q. Which is the fifth character? 

A. To be evident and palpable, because it consists entirely of 
facts incessantly present to the senses, and to demonstration. 

Q. Are not other laws evident? 

A. No: for they are founded on past and doubtful facts, on 
equivocal and suspicious testimonies, and on proofs inaccessible 
to the senses. 

Q. Which is the sixth character? 

A. To be reasonable, because its precepts and entire doctrine 
are conformable to reason, and to the human understanding. 

Q. Is no other law reasonable? 

A. No: for all are in contradiction to the reason and the 
understanding of men, and tyrannically impose on him a blind 
and impracticable belief. 

Q. Which is the seventh character? 

A. To be just, because in that law, the penalties are propor- 
tionate to the infractions. 

Q. Are not other laws just? 

A. No: for they often exceed bounds, either in rewarding 
deserts, or in punishing delinquencies; and they often impute to 
meritorious, or criminal intentions, null or indifferent actions. 

Q. Which is the eighth character? 

A. To be pacific and tolerant, because in the law of nature, 
all men being brothers, and equal in rights, it recommends to 
them, peace and toleration, even for errors. 

114 



Q. Are not other laws pacific? 

A. No: for all preach dissension, discord, and war; and 
divide mankind by exclusive pretensions of truth and domination. 

Q. Which is the ninth character? 

A. To be equally beneficent to all men, in teaching them the 
true means of becoming better and happier. 

Q. Are not other laws beneficent likewise? 

A. No: for not one of them teaches the means of attaining 
happiness — all are confined to pernicious and futile practices: this 
is evident from facts, since, after so many laws, so many religions, 
so many legislators and prophets, men are still as unhappy and as 
ignorant as they were five thousand years back. 

Q. Which is the last character of the law of Nature? 

A. That it is alone sufficient to render men happier and better, 
because it contains all that is good and useful in other laws, either 
civil or religious; that is to say, it constitutes essentially the moral 
part of them; so that if other laws were divested of it, they would 
be reduced to chimerical and imaginary opinions, devoid of any 
practical utility. 

Q. How do our sensations deceive us? 

A. In two ways: by ignorance, and by passion. 

Q. When do they deceive us by ignorance? 

A. When we act without knowing the action and effect 
of objects on our senses: for example, when a man touches nettles 
without knowing their stinging quality, or when he swallows 
opium without knowing its soporiferous effect. 

Q. When do they deceive us by passion? 

A. When, conscious of the pernicious action of objects, we 
abandon ourselves, notwithstanding, to the impetuosity of our 
desires, and of our appetites: for example, when a man who knows 
that wine intoxicates, does nevertheless drink it to excess. 

Q. What is good according to the law of Nature? 

A. It is everything that tends to preserve and perfect man. 

Q. What is evil? 

A. It is everything that tends to spoil or destroy man. 

Q. Which are the individual virtues? 

A. They are five principal ones in number: 

ist, Science, which comprises prudence and wisdom. 
2dly, Temperance, which comprises sobriety and chastity. 
3dly, Courage, or strength of body, and of the soul. 
4thly, Activity; that is to say, the love of labor, and the 
employment of time; and in short, cleanliness or purity 
of body, as well in dress as in habitation. 

Q. How does the law of Nature prescribe science? 

A. By the reason that man, who knows the causes and effects 
of things, attends in an extensive and sure manner to his preserva- 

115 



tion, and to the development of his faculties. Science is to him 
the eye and the light that enables him to discern clearly, and with 
justness, the objects amidst which he moves; and hence the word 
enlightened man is made use of, to signify a learned and instructed 
man. Science and instruction furnish us, unfailingly, with re- 
sources and means of subsisting; and this is what prompted a 
philosopher that was shipwrecked to say, in the midst of his com- 
panions, who were lamenting bitterly the loss of their wealth, "for 
my part, I carry all my wealth within me." 

Q. Which is the vice contrary to science? 

A. It is ignorance. 

Q. How does the law of Nature forbid ignorance? 

A. By the grievous detriments which result from it to our 
existence; for the ignorant man, who knows neither causes nor 
effects, commits, every instant, errors the most pernicious, both to 
himself and to others; he resembles a blind man, who gropes his 
way at random, and runs, or is run against, by every one he meets. 

Q. What is temperance? 

A. It is a regular use of our faculties, which makes us never 
exceed, in our sensations, the end of Nature to preserve us: it is 
the moderation of passions. 

Q. Which is the vice contrary to temperance? 

A. The disorder of the passions, the avidity of all kind of 
enjoyments; in a word, cupidity. 

Q. Which are the principal branches of temperance? 

A. Sobriety, continence, or chastity. 

Q. Does the law of Nature forbid the use of certain kinds of 
meat, or of certain vegetables, on particular days, during certain 
seasons? 

A. No: it absolutely forbids, only whatever is injurious to 
health; its precepts, in this respect, vary according to persons, and 
they constitute a very delicate and important science; for the 
quality, the quantity, and the combination of ailments have the 
greatest influence, not only over the momentary affections of the 
soul, but even over its habitual disposition. A man is not the 
same fasting as after a meal; even were he sober, a glass of 
spirituous liquor, or a dish of coffee, give degrees of vivacity, of 
mobility, of disposition to anger, sadness, or gaiety; such a meat, 
t»ecause it lies heavy on the stomach, engenders moroseness and 
melancholy; such another, because it assists digestion, creates 
sprightliness, and an inclination to oblige and to love. The use of 
vegetables, because they have little nourishment, renders the body 
weak, and gives a disposition to repose, idleness, and ease. The 
use of meat, because it is full of nourishment, stimulates the nerves, 
and therefore gives vivacity, uneasiness, and audacity. Now from 
those habitudes of ailment result habits of constitution and of the 

116 



organs, which form at length different kinds of temperaments, dis- 
tinguishing each by a peculiar characteristic. And it is for this 
reason that, in hot countries especially, legislators have made laws 
respecting regimen or food. The ancients were taught by long 
experience, that the dietic science constituted a great part of the 
moral science. Amongst the Egyptians, the ancient Persians, and 
even amongst the Greeks, at the areopagus, important affairs were 
examined fasting. And it has been remarked, that amongst those 
people, where public affairs were discussed during the heat of meals, 
and the fumes of digestion, deliberations were hasty and turbulent, 
and the results of them frequently unreasonable, and productive of 
turbulence and disturbance. 

Q. Does the law of Nature prescribe continence? 

A. Yes : because a moderate use of the most lively of pleasures 
is not only useful, but indispensable, to the support of strength 
and health; and because a simple calculation proves, that for some 
minutes of privation, you increase the number oi your days, both 
in vigor of body and of mind. 

Q. How does it forbid libertinism? 

A. By the numerous evils which result from it to the physical 
and the moral existence. 

Q. Are courage, and strength of body and mind virtues in 
the < law of Nature? 

A. Yes; and most important virtues; they are the efficacious 
and indispensable means of attending to our preservation and 
welfare. The courageous and strong man repulses oppression, 
defends his life, his liberty, and his property. (By his labor he 
procures himself an abundant subsistence, which he enjoys in 
tranquillity and peace of mind. If he fails under misfortunes, fro^m 
which his prudence could not protect him, he supports them with 
firmness and resignation; and it is for this reason that the ancient 
moralists have placed strength and courage on the list of the four 
principal virtues. 

Q. Should weakness and cowardice be considered as Vices? 

A. Yes; since it is certain that they produce innumerable 
calamities. 

Q. Are idleness and sloth vices in the law of Nature? 

A. Yes, and the most pernicious of all vices; for they lead 
to every other. 

Q. Why do you place cleanliness in the ranks of virtues? 

A. Because it is, in reality, one of the most important 
amongst them, on account of its powerful influence over the health 
and preservation of the body. Cleanliness, as well in dress as in 
residence, obviates the pernicious effects of the humidity, the 
iDaneful odors, and vcontagious exhalations, which exhale from all 
things abandoned to putrefaction: cleanliness maintains free trans- 

117 



piration; it renews the air, refreshes the blood, and disposes even 
the mind to alacrity. 

From this it appears, that persons attentive to the cleanliness 
of their body and habitations, are, in general, more healthy, and 
less exposed to distempers, than those who live in the midst of 
filth and nastiness; again, it is further remarked, that cleanliness 
carries along with it throughout all the branches of domestic ad- 
ministration, habits of order and arrangement, which is one of the 
first means and first elements of happiness. 

Q. Uncleanliness, or filthiness, is therefore a real vice? 

A. Yes, as real a one as drunkenness or idleness from which, 
in a great measure, it is derived. 

Q. Does the law of Nature order sincerity? 

A. Yes; for lying, perfidy, and perjury creates distrust, 
quarrels, hatred, revenge, and a crowd of evils amongst men, 
which tends to their common destruction; whilst sincerity and 
fidelity establish confidence, concord, and peace, besides the infinite 
good resulting from such a state of things to society. 

All wisdom, all perfection, all law, all virtue, all philosophy, 
consist in the practice of those axioms founded on our own or- 
ganization, 

PRESERVE THYSELF; 
INSTRUCT THYSELF; 
MODERATE THYSELF; 

Live for thy fellow citizens — that they may live for thee. 



118 



APPENDIX TO LECTURE ON LOVE. 



The unfortunate Algernon Sidney was born 1622 and beheaded 
1683. His essay on love has been very rare and was in our day 
only reprinted once in "Nineteenth Century," 1884. 

ALGERNON SIDNEY ON LOVE. 

Love is the passion that hath passed all censures, as various 
as the kinds of it, or the effects. It is by all esteemed the most 
powerful of passions, by most the best; some stick not to say 
it is the worst, because the least controuleable by reason. It is 
of as many kinds as theare are objects in the world, and incli- 
nations in men: but I intend at this time only to speake of that 
to beauty, the height of which we commonly call being in love. 
This consists of as many sorts as beauty, which are two, that of 
the mind, and that of the boddy; the Platonicks adde a thirde, 
which is of sounds, and if anything miay be called beauty that 
hath proportion and correspondence of parts, that name may cer- 
tainly agree with sounds, though they are to be judged neither 
by the eye, nor the understanding, which are generally esteemed 
the powers that distinguish betwixt beauty and deformity; but, 
howsoever, theis tow only will fall under my discourse, for what 
excellence soever is in sounds, that can only be an invitation, 
and not the object of love, unlesse a man could be fancied to be 
nothing but eare, as eccho is nothing but voice, (that is to say) 
nothing at all, and so incapable of anything, or of being. The 
Stoicks, generall enemyes to all passions, doe also reject this, 
as that which doth toe much soften the mind, depriving it theareby 
of that firmenesse of temper, which is that only in which reason 
delights and governes ; never the lesse storyes are full of thoes wise 
men whoe for all theire pretended austerity have fallen as deeply 
under the power of that passion as any other in the world, as if 
the Divine Power had made use of it to shew them the vanitye 
of theire principles. Epicureans allow soe much of it as conduceth 
to pleasure, but reject the transporting part; and to shew how 
well they make this good, Lucretius, one of the cheife fathers of 
that sect, for all his philosophy grew soe desperately in love with 
a young wxnch, who rejecting him for his old age, he in rage 

119 



threw himself downe a steep rock into the sea. But the Platonicks 
are the perfect patrons of that passion, even to the degree of dis- 
liking hardly anything that carryes that name. 

Love is the most intense desire of the soule to enjoy beauty, 
and wheare it is reciprocal, is the most entire and exact union 
of harts. Divers reasons are given for the birth and groweth 
of it; some esteeme likenesse of natures, others like constellations 
ruling at the time of birth. For my owne part I can only con- 
clude, that whatsoever pleaseth the eye and the fancye is beau- 
tifull, whatsoever we think beautifull we desire to enjoy, and that 
desire is love. Theare is also tow kinds of this love, the one per- 
fectly spiritual which is called the celestial Venus, and having 
its seat only in the minde hathe the mind only for its object, de- 
lights in virtue and excellence of understanding, neglects the visible 
beauty, contents itself solely with that fruition which is to be had 
by conversation. The other is absolutely sensuall, makes the ex- 
terior part its object, and hath no other end than sensuall pleasure: 
the first is an affection for Angells, pure and contemplative, the 
other for beasts, filthy and sottish. 

Man is a creature composed of both theis, a celestiall and 
angellicall part, which is the soule, and of the terrestriall, fleshy, 
bestiall part, which is his boddy, soe that his affections ought to 
participate of both his natures, rejecting that which solely con- 
sists in the admiration of the soule, as that which he can very 
imperfectly judge of, and where the knowledge is imperfect, the 
desire must needs be very cold. Neither is he pleased with the 
other; thoes are but weak chaines which take hold only of our senses: 
the principall part in us challengeth a share in all our pleasures, 
and must have wheare with all to content itself or else there is 
nothing fixed. Therefore a man, to love as a man, must have 
regard to both; and as long as he is in any degree reasonable, 
can fix his hart neither absolutely uppon that which is too high 
to be understood, nor too low to be approved: a mixed creature 
must have mixed affections, and can love only wheare he finds 
a mind of such excellency as to delight his understanding, and 
a body of beauty to please his senses: and the mind being by 
much the most considerable part in us, the principal care is for 
the pleasing of that; for the mind being the only fixed power 
in us, fixed affections can only grow from thence. The eyes are 
wandering, the senses uncertaine, the desires that proceed from 
them must be soe allsoe; the necessity of which appears in this: 
everything acts according to a principle within itself. An Angell 
loves spiritually; a beast, that is all flesh, comprehends not spir- 
itual things any more than an Angell tasts carnal things, and a 
man that is composed of reason and sense, rationally and sen- 
sually both together. Besides, every agent proposeth to itself en- 

120 



joyment of good, (that is pleasure) for all that is good is pleasant 
and nothing ought to please but that which is good; that is good 
only that satisfyes; that can never satisfye, which is agreeable 
only to one part of a composed creature. The soule disdains 
sensuall pleasures; the senses taste not the spirituall, so that to 
please both the object must be such as both may joyne in the 
enjoyment. 

I will conclude this point with this assertion; the spirituall 
affections are soe cold as hardly to have any being; sensuall are 
soe madde as to be unworthy of anything that pretends to a reason- 
able soule; and the strong, lasting, high, and perfectly humane 
passions, are only those which proceed from the admonition of 
an excellent mind clothed with a beautiful boddy. This is a rare 
jewel well set, and fit to be sought after with all the powers of 
the soule and boddy, as that only which can content both with 
the fullest and most absolute happinesse that our natures can be 
capable of, in comparison of which all other worldly pleasures 
are vaine and empty shadows, unworthy of being sought with 
intention of mind or enjoyed with any satisfaction. Happy there- 
fore is he who hath his hopes and desires crowned with successe, 
or that in the search of them being denied pleasure in life, finds 
ease and rest in death. 

To this I may add, that everything is received according to the 
mieasure of the receiver, and every man loves more or lesse spiritually 
or sensually, as he doth more approach to the angelicall or bestiall 
nature; for the same degrees and differences that are in our persons 
are allsoe in our afifections, and though it be true that some love as 
sensually as beasts, yet will it not follow that others attaine to the 
spirittuality of Angels ; for it is very ordinary to see thoes that have 
the shapes of men so absolutely corrupted with vice, that they seem 
to have no soule, or so much as serves them instead of salt only, to 
keep them from corrupting and stinking; but the other sort is not 
seene amongst men, I meane thoes of angellicall perfections. The 
best of men are troubled with frailetyes and vices, the worst have 
nothing else; for which noe other reason perhaps can be given, then 
that it is soe seemed good to the Divine Wisdom; unlesseyou will take 
this for one, that we have within ourselves a power of doing or being ill, 
but that our recovery from that condition of illnesse which is natural 
to us, is by the power of God upon our harts, whoe gives his graces 
unto such men, at such times, and in such proportion as he pleaseth, 
leaving us still with many infirmityes, that we may humble ourselves, 
and acknowledging God to be the Author of all good, depend upon 
him for a delivery fromi all interior and exterior ills; and reserves 
the state of perfection to fill up the measure of our happinesse, when 
we come to that of immortality. To this I may adde that morally vice 
is easy and naturall to us, but virtue is to be understood only by dis- 

121 



course, and practised by care; into the first every foole can runne 
blindfold, the other is only the work of an excellent spirit, refined by 
great maturity and strength of wisdome; to the one facility invites, 
from the other difficulty deters, which is as much more eminent in 
the one then the other, as it is harder for one that is placed in the 
middest of a steepe rock, to climbe up to the top thereof, then to 
throw himself downe to the bottomic. 

The next point is to shew what is the streng-th and power of this 
aflfection. It is generally concluded by all to be the strongest of all, 
and besides what every man that hath tasted of it finds within his 
owne brest, all books are full of storyes of such as have in comparison 
of the person loved, despised all worldly things, and being possessed 
by that passion, bin transported to actions much beyond theire ordi- 
nary facultyes, either good or ill, as the nature of the persons affec- 
tion or the present occasion inclined and required. But all that is 
alleaged by others is cold and weake in comparaison of what thoes find 
within theire owne harts whoe have bin capable of this best and noblest 
of passions. Theire whole mind is full of but one thought: the 
allurements of the world, which other men call pleasures, they have 
no tast of; the businesse is tedious and insupportable; theire whole 
care and industry is solely imployed in serving and pleasing the be- 
loved person. They are strangers to feare, joy, greife, hope, anger, 
but such as spring from love. Theire desires are most intensively 
placed upon one object, which by a strange violence transports 
us beyond our selves, gives courage to the most fearfull, sharpens 
the wit of the most simple, gives felicity to the most depraved minds, 
constancy to the most unsettled, and of itself alone hath power to 
draw thoes harts which have received it to acts of goodnesse, honesty, 
virtue, and gallantry, with more efficacy then all the most exact ex- 
amples of history, and precepts of phylosophy. 

The reason of this I take to be, that love for its end proposeth 
the enjoyment of beauty; beauty consists in order, harmony, and 
uniformity, unto which all ill actions have an absolute contrariety, 
having neither rule, order, forme, or measure, but are like vice, the 
spring from whence they flow, full of confusednesse and deformity. 
Besides, he that loves desires to render himself acceptable to the per- 
son loved, which being full of virtuous inclinations, (or at least 
thought to be soe by the lover) doth abhorre all that is not agreeable 
to reason and g-oodnesse, and the lover finding nothing to be pleas- 
ing but that which is suitable to the affections of the object of his 
passion, rejects and hates all depraved desires as destructive to his 
chiefe designe, and thearefore with an active earnestnesse applyes 
himself to correct the defects of his owne nature, which hath pro- 
duced more excellent actions then all the affections in the world put 
together; unlesse I am mistaken in this, that it is not love that 
makes them virtuous, but being virtuous inclines them to love. 

122 



But least that by proposing' the enjoyment of beauty for the 
end of love, I should be too much drowned in sensuallity, I must ex- 
plain myself a littell. It is very certaine that all desire is for fruition ; 
but that fruition that satisfyes a desire must be of the same nature 
with the desire itself. Sensuall desires are satisfyed with sensuall 
fruition, spirituall with spirituall, mixt with mixt; or that I may not 
trouble myself with tearms, I may in one word comprehend all, the 
desire of a lover to be loved, and that perfect union of hearts is the 
perfection of lovers happinesse; for though we are inclinable to 
desire the senses may not be excluded, yet having the principal end 
of our desires, wee may rest fully satisfied, tho^ that in some particu- 
lars wee find ourselves crossed by fortune; for he cannot be said to 
want any thing that is made one with the person that is full of all ex- 
cellencies. Neither is it extravagant for mee whoe professe love to 
beauty to be contented with spirituall fruition; for though in my 
choice I aime at the beauty of the boddy, it is principally theareby to 
discover the beauty of the mind; for nature, which delights in 
proportion, suites not an excellent mind with a deformed boddy, 
nor a vicious (that is deformed) mind in a beautifull boddy. Nature's 
works are not like hippocrites or sepulchers, beautiful without and 
rottenesse within. It weare a deceipt to cover the wretched wickedr 
nesse of a vicious mind with thoes glorious ornaments of beauty 
which make up one of the attributes of the Deity; and whereas 
beauty, which is the greatest excellency of things created as well as 
uncreated, and is in things created a motive to us to admire the 
greatnesse and goodnesse of the Creator, if it did palliate vice, would 
be the greatest snare to us that is imaginable, and instead of delight- 
ing- in the outward resemblance of God, bring us to worship the 
Devill. But an intention to deceave our weake natures cannot pro- 
ceed from the spirit of goodness; that is a diamond set in gold, and 
the other a worthlesse flint, which he suffers to ly in the dirt. 

That is truely excellent, which God hath caused to shine with 
the glory of his own rayes; wheare soever theire is beauty I can 
never doubt of goodnesse. 

Thoes parts of the sea that are safe have calm and smoth 
waters, but wheare dangerous rocks lye at the bottome, even the 
surface is perpetually rough and troubled. It is true that not 
only age impaires all beautyes, but many are destroyed by acci- 
dents, from which even the most excellent are not exempted, as 
the safest parts of the sea may be disturbed and troubled with 
storms; but that opposeth not my pourpose, for ayming at reall, 
not phantasticall excellence, I look for the natural!, not the acci- 
dental! beauty or deformity, and will noe more grant that a beautifull 
face can by the small pox or any other accident grow deformed 
to one that knew and loved it before, then that a deformed can 



123 



SI 



change its nature by painting, though both will deceave any eyes 
that have not excellent facultyes of decerning. 

Upon all which it will appear, that the beautye of the boddy 
gives the beginning to love, but that after the image thereof is 
graven upon a hart, and the beautye of the mind discovered, it 
is not in the power of age, or anv naturall or accidentall cause to 
roote it out or deface it; for that which at the first was only the act 
of the fancy by the help of the eye, is now growne to be the 
act of the understanding firmly fixed in the hart and mind, which 
being the governing power in man, finding its own desires 
satisfied in being loved, finds rest within itself; and though 
theare is a flame remayning in the senses, which mutiny for theare 
part alsoe of fruition they are not able to cause any great disturb- 
ance in a man that is reasonable. But if the mind fade of its desire, 
the whole frame of man is in confusion, the hart is rent asunder 
by the violence of passion, and theare is noe power left to appease 
the rage of the senses. This extremity of disorder and torment 
seems fabulous to thoes that have not felt it within themselves; 
every one is apt to say, if he cannot obtain the affections of one 
person, why doth he not apply his to another who is more kind? 
But they littell understand love's mystery who use theis discourses, 
for noe man is in love but with an opinion of the excellency of 
the beloved person above all others, and hath absolutely resigned 
his hart unto hir. The most exact beautyes seeme but vaine shad- 
dowes, the excellentest minds but imperfect images of hir imper- 
fection; and failing of his desire in enjoying hir only who hath 
the power of his hart, despiseth all things else; and being despised 
by her, hates all that himself despiseth. 

And that which fills up the measure of the rejected lover's 
torment, is, that despaire will not cure it, for to love without hope 
is but a seeming contradiction; for though hope is to desire as 
fuel is to fire, the elementary fire burnes without the fuel, and 
passion grounded upon confession of excellence outlives hope. Or 
if theare be such a power of man to confine his desires to his 
hope (which I believe only in thoes that are weake, faint and 
grounded only upon some trifling convenience) they are of all 
men most happy, theire calme brests are free from disorder, and 
while other wretches are in trouble, they find perfect peace, their 
love serves only to procure pleasure, and like a strong well-tem- 
pered stomach, either drawes nourishment out of whatsoever it 
receaves or casts it up; soe they trye all, and retaine only such 
as encrease their happinesse. 

Neverthelesse a true and perfect lover would not procure his 
owne rest, by defacing the beloved image which with soe much 
joye he printed in his owne hart; but I think this part of discourse 
is frivoulous as impossible, and that same image doth take such 

124 



root, and growes soe entirely one with the hart, that both must 
live and die together without possibility of separation. At least 
with me I am sure it is; my passion hath made itself master of 
all the facultyes of my mind, and hath destroyed all that is in 
opposition unto it; I live in it, and by it; it is all that I am; take 
away that and I am nothing. I can neither conformc my desires 
to my hopes, nor raise my hopes to my desires; the lownesse and 
meannesse of my fortune and person forbids me to hope; the 
beautye and lovelinesse of the person whome I love makes my 
desires approach as neare to eternity, as that can doe which is 
seated in a mortal foundation. My constancy is both my fault and 
my punishment; death only can give me a dismission from either. 

Having spoken something oi what love is, and of the effects 
of it, it is now time to see wheather it ought to be reproved or 
commended, denied the entrance into harts, turned out, or em- 
braced; or rather if I had observed any methode, when I spoke 
something of others opinions upon it, should have finished my 
owne, but I writing only to day that which I shall reade the next 
week or moneth, and then burne, having noe other intention but 
to ease my troubled thoughts, and to attaine to the knowledge 
oi myself, by setting down naifely the true state of my mind, 
I littell care for thoes rules which are necessary to thoes whoe 
are to depend on others judgements, I content myself with set- 
ting downe my thoughts, without caring for rule or order, as 
appears by breaking and returning to my story; by affirming first 
that one of the principall works for which we are sent into this 
world, is to admire the works of him that made both us and it; 
thoes are the most excellent that are the most beautifull (for beauty 
is the perfection of excellence) and those works of nature are of 
the most perfect beauty, which are living, and of the living, the 
reasonable only can content a reasonable soule: the most excellent 
therefore in beauty of reasonable creatures, doth best deserve our 
admiration, and theareby we do fulfill a great part of the end 
for which we were created. But who can admire any thing with- 
out desiring the fruition of it, and that desire is love. 

For what reason can be imagined for the difference that we 
see in persons, (for the same power that made all things could 
have made all alike perfect) but to make theareby a difference in 
our affections towards them? Why are some made glorious in 
beauty but to draw the affections unto them? Why others cursed 
with deformity, but to give the greater luster unto thoes that are 
contrary to them, or to shew the illnesse of their natures, as marks 
that men should beware of them? How blind a sottishnesse, is it, 
not to see and distinguish of beauty, and what a beastly malice it is 
not to love that which we acknowledge to be excellent! The glory 
of divine rayes doe appeare in faces, but much more in minds; 

125 



whoe can then without barbarity (I think I may say impiety) deny 
to suffer himself to be ravished with the admiration of such an 
excellence of a created beauty, as is an image of the uncreateh, 
or to be inflamed with the love of it, and the desire to enjoy it? 
If desires weare absolutely sinfull, they had never bin given us; 
if beauty might not be desired, it had never been created: theare 
is noe forbidden fruite out of Paradice. We have a free liberty 
of enjoying all that is good: goodnesse and beauty are converti- 
ble tearmes and indivisible things, and they are happy that attaine 
unto it: they that are wise desire that which is best. 

But some will say, we ought to desire even the best things with 
moderation, which love destroyes: Ah! let that extend to ordinary 
things — Desire riches, honours and the like coldly, and unpas- 
sionately : they cannot content the mind, thearefore ought not to pos- 
sesse it, but wheare beauty of mind and boddy meet, both in such 
excellency as leave not liberty to the fancy to imagine any thing more 
perfect, whoe can attribute too much either to it or the Author, since 
that alone is able fully to satisfy all our desires? Worldly things doe 
often cloy us, but never content us. Some consist wholly in 
contemplation, entertain the mind, neglect or destroy the boddy; 
others that satisfy the senses, distast the mind, perhaps hurt it: but 
such of our pleasure have their worth only from our vanity ; but this, 
a Person soe qualified leaves noe part of us unsatisfied, nor any thing 
in relation to this world to be wished to compleat our happinesse; 
weare it not then much better to use that prudence by which they 
pretend to moderate theire afifections, only in making choice of such 
a person to be the object of them, as may absolutely deserve their 
utmost intentions? 

Besides what can reasonably be brought to fortify this opinion, 
if we examine what men have bin free or possessed with this passion, 
we shall find few that have not tasted of it, unlesse they be ordinary 
and vulgar spirits, or such as by the vanity of ambition or some other 
furious passion or vice (which love abhorres) transported even into 
madnesse, which neverthelesse hathe not defended some of them 
from being made slaves to Venus. And amongst the heathens, the 
Poets whoe weare theare wisest men, and in their fables compre- 
hended all the misteryes of phylosophy, exempted not theire gods 
from this passion. And amongst Christians, I know but tow cau- 
tions that are but by men of understanding, which are, that love to 
the creature be not of such a degree as to take us from the worship 
and love of God; th' other that we defend ourselves from unlawful de- 
sires, both of which I grant, and yet have as much as I desire; for 
that same love, for which God created and beautified the world, is the 
only means for us to retume unto him, who is the fountain of our 
being: and through the imperfections of our owne natures being not 
able to see or comprehend his greatnesse and goodnesse otherwise 

126 



then by his works, must make us from visible thing's to raise our 
thoughts up to him. And for unlawful desires, they are not more 
contrary unto religion then to love, which delights only in beauty 
and virtue, hates the deformity of vice, and of that brutish lust which 
distinguisheth not of honour or justice. He cannot be said to love 
a woman, that would buy his owne pleasure with hir dishonour or 
crime; he only loves himself. Besides, the love which I defend being 
in a great degree spirituall, cannot desire any thing that is vicious; 
vice destroys the principall object of love (which is the mind) and 
the benefite that is reaped by such pleasures, can only satisfy the 
senses, which thearefore love not only desires not, but hates. 

But the greatest reason why we should apply ourselves to op- 
pose the birth and growth of this 'passion, is the infinite paines and 
sorrowes that it causeth, how many are made miserable for one 
that attaines to happinesse by it; and even thoes are first exposed to 
all miseries before they obtaine theare desire. And truly to this I 
have very littell to answeare; only this, that as love is the cause of the 
greatest ills that men suffer, it is the cause alsoe of the most perfect 
pleasures, consisting only in extreams, and as many are made mis- 
erably by love, none are made happy without love. It is the most 
active instrument of our natures, and causeth the most good or hurt 
to us. But though a quiet indififerent state, voide of great griefes 
or joyes, weare to be chosen rather then this slippery precipice, from 
whence we are soe likely to fall into misery, discourses upon it weare 
vaine; for our weak reason, which should be our guide, is carried 
away captive by the power of beauty and virtue, against which 
blindnesse only and stupidity are able to make any defence. 

Theare is another sort of people whoe are great pretenders to 
wisdome, whoe say that the objects of our desires should be such as 
satisfy the mind, and that if any such can be found, too great a valeu 
cannot be put upon it, but deny that can be found amongst women; 
they are only light creatures, fit to satisfy the senses, maintain our 
species, and quensh our naturall desires, and have not such mindes as 
can give delight to a wise man. 

How great an ignorance is this ! Socrates learnt his phylosophy 
from Pictinna: though shee receaved hir first principles from him, 
shee grew soe excellent as to be able to teach hir master, whoe was 
able to teach all the rest of the world. And Pericles, to whome all 
Greece gave the preference for wisdome, confessed he knew nothing 
but what he had learnt from the faire Aspasia; both of which weare as 
excellent for their beauty as understanding: and whoe is it that doth 
not know that every age hath produced some very excellent in thoes 
things for which men most prize themselves, and yet theis grave 
fooles despise them? 

It is true that weomen have not thoes helps from studdy and 
education as men have, but in the natural powers of the mind are noe 

127 



ways inferior. They exempt themselves from the trouble of thoes 
knotty sciences that serve only to deceave fooles, which furnish the 
tongue with wordes, but tend nothing- to the framing of the under- 
standing; and instead of this they have a pleasantnesse of wit in con- 
versation very much beyond men, and a well composednesse of 
judgment, which, if they did not deserve our love, would move our 
envy: and unto whatsoever they apply themselves, either learning, 
businesse, domestick or publike governement, shew themselves at 
the least equall to our sex. I should be glad if I could except mili- 
tary business, naturally disliking any thing of violence amongst 
them; but even in that many have bin excellent. 

But above all, the softnesse, gentlenesse, and sweetnesse that is 
in them, doth justly move our love and admiration, whereas mens 
minds are as ruggid and harsh as theire faces ; fit for boisterous action 
by the strength and hardinesse of theire boddyes, but incapable of 
giving pleasure : and even in that quality which men soe m.uch prize 
in themselves, which is courage, how many of them hath been faine 
to take example in generous and bold resolutions from theire wives, 
daughters, or mistresses. Epicharis suffered torture better than any 
of forty the most eminent senators of Rome, of divers kindred of the 
chiefe of the soldiery, concealing by hir constancy the conspiracy 
which the weaknesse of the others revealed. Seneca was glad -to re- 
ceave encouragement and example to dye from Paulina, Petus from 
Arria in his extremity, and the famous Brutus often from Porcia: 
besides infinite number of exemples of virtue, by which that sweet 
sexe shewes they can, when it is needfull, excell ours in gallantry as 
well as beauty, and gives us sufficient reason to conclude that they 
cannot only mitigate the troubles of our life, which wee through a 
turbelent illnesse of nature create to one another, but by theire ex- 
amples mollify our hardinesse by pleasures we receave from them, 
recompense the mischief our harsh tempers expose us unto, and that 
they only are the worthy objects of our affections, it being as evident 
that we owe our pleasures to them, as our birth ; they are only to ease 
our griefs and cares, and which is more beneficiall unto us, soften that 
rigid fiercenesse of mind which is our crime and plague, the instru- 
ments of our owne and others miseryes, by the sweet allurements of 
pleasure that we receave from them; let not any man through a fond 
and impudent presumption in his owne merit despise that sex. 



128 



EPILOGUE. 



"Should I be visited by corporeal suffering, pain, or disease, I 
cannot avoid feeling them, for they are accidents of my nature ; and, 
as long as I remain here below I am a part of Nature. But they 
shall not grieve me. They can onLy touch the nature with which in a 
wonderful manner I am united, — not myself, the being exalted above 
all Nature. The sure end of all pain, and of all sensibility to pain, is 
death; and of all things which the mere natural man is wont to re- 
gard, as evils, this is to me the least. I shall not die to myself, but 
only to others ; to those who remain behind, from whose fellowship I 
am torn: — for myself the hour of Death is the hour of Birth to a new, 
more excellent life. 

"Now that my heart is closed against all desire for earthly things, 
now that I have no longer any sense for the transitory and perish- 
able, the universe appears before my eyes clothed in a more glorious 
form. The dead inert mass, which only filled up space, has vanished ; 
and in its place there flows onward, with the rushing music of mighty 
waves, an endless stream of life and power and action, which issues 
from the original Source of all life — from Thy Life, O Infinite One! 
for all life is Thy Life, and only the religious eye penetrates to the 
realm of True Beauty. 

"I am related to Thee, and all that I behold around me is related 
to me; all is life and soul, and regards me with bright spirit-eyes, and 
speaks with spirit-voices to my heart. In all the forms that surround 
me, I behold the reflection of my own being broken up into countless 
diversified shapes, as the morning sun, broken in a thousand dew- 
drops, throws back its splendors to itself. 

"Thy Life, as alone the finite mind can conceive it, is self-form- 
ing, self-manifesting Will : — this Life, clothed to the eye of the mortal 
with manifold sensible forms, flows forth through me, and through- 
out the immeasurable universe of Nature. Here it streams as self- 
creating and self-forming matter through the veins and muscles, and 
pours out its abundance into the tree, the plant, the grass. Creative 
life flows forth in one continuous stream, drop on drop, through all 
forms, and places^ where my eye can follow it; it reveals itself to 
me, in a different shape in each various corner of the universe, as the 

129 



same power by which in secret darkness my own frame was formed. 
There, in free play, it leaps and dances as spontaneous activity in the 
animal, and manifests itself in each new form, as a new, peculiar, self- 
subsisting world; the same power which, invisibly to me, moves and 
animates my own frame. Everything that lives and moves follows 
this universal impulse, this one principle of all motion, which, from 
one end of the universe to the other, guides the harmonious move- 
ment; — in the animal ivithout freedom; in me, fro^m whom in the 
visible world the motion proceeds, although it had not its source in 
me, with freedom. 

"But pure and holy, and as near to Thine own nature as aught 
can be tO' mortal eye, does this Thy Life flow forth as the bond which 
unites spirit with spirit, as the breath and atmosphere of a rational 
world, unimaginable and incomprehensible, and yet there, clearly 
visible to the spiritual eye. Borne onward in this stream of light, 
thought floats from soul to soul without pause or variation, and 
returns purer and brighter from each kindred mind. Through this 
mysterious union does each individual perceive, understand, and love 
himself only in another; each soul unfolds itself only through its fel- 
lows, and there are no longer individual men, but only one human- 
ity; no individual thought or love or hate, but only thought, love and 
hate, in and through the other. Through this wondrous influence 
the affinity of spirits in the invisible world permeates even their phys- 
ical nature; — manifests itself in two sexes, which, even if that spiritual 
bond could be torn asunder, would, simply as creatures of nature, be 
compelled to love each other; — flows forth in the tenderness of 
parents and children, brothers and sisters, as if the souls were of one 
blood like the bodies, and their minds were branches and blossoms 
of the same stem; — and from those embraces, in narrower or wider 
circles, the whole sentiment world. Even at the root of their hate,, 
there lies a secret thirst after love; and no enmity springs up but from 
friendship denied. 

"Through that which to others seems a mere dead mass, my eye 
beholds this eternal life and movement in every vein of sensible and 
spiritual Nature, and sees this life rising in ever-increasing growth, 
and ever purifying itself to a more spiritual expression. The uni- 
verse is to me no longer what it was before — the ever-recurring, 
circle, the eternally repeated play, the monster swallowing itself up 
only to bring itself forth again; — it has become transfigured before 
me, and now bears the one stamp of spiritual life — a constant prog- 
ress toward higher perfection in a line that runs out into the Infinite.. 

"Tbe sun rises and sets, the stars sink and reappear, the spheres 
hold their circle dance; — but they never return again as they disap- 
peared, and even in the bright fountain of life itself there is life and- 
progress. Every hour which they lead on, every rriorning and every 
evening, sinks with new increase upon the world; new life and new 

130 



love descends from the spheres hke dew-drops from the clouds, and 
encircle nature as the cool nig"ht the earth. 

"All Death in Nature is Birth, and in Death itself appears visibly 
the exaltation of Life. There is no destructive principle in Nature, for 
Nature throughout is pure, unclouded Life; it is not Death that kills, 
but the more living- Life which, concealed behind the former, bursts 
forth into new development. Death and Birth are but the struggle 
of Life with itself to assume a more glorious and congenial form. 
And my death, — how can it be aught else, since I am not a mere 
show, and semblance of life, but bear within me the original, true and 
essential Life? It is impossible to conceive that Nature should 
annihilate a life which does not proceed from her; — ^the Nature which 
exists for me and not I for her. 

"Yet even my natural life, even this mere outward manifestation 
to mortal sight of the inward invisible Life, she cannot destroy with- 
out destroying herself; — she who only exists for mie, and on account 
of me, and exists not if I am not. Even because she destroys mie 
must she animate me anew; it is only my Higher Life, unfolding 
itself in her, before which my present life can disappear, and what 
mortals call Death is the visible appearance of this second Life. Did 
no reasonable being who had once beheld the light of this world 
die, there would be no ground to look with faith for a new heaven, 
and a new earth; the only possible purpose of Nature, to manifest 
and maintain Reason, would be fulfilled here below, and her circle 
would be completed. But the very fact by which she consigns a 
free and independent being to death, is her own solemn entrance, in- 
telligible to all Reason, into a region beyond this act itself, and be- 
yond the whole sphere of existence which is thereby closed. Death 
is the ladder by which my spiritual vision rises to a new Life and a 
new Nature. 

"Every one of my fellow-creatures who leaves this earthly broth- 
erhood and whom, because he is my brother, my spirit cannot regard 
as annihilated, draws my thoughts after him beyond the grave; — he 
is still, and to him there belongs a place. While we mourn for him 
here below, — as in the dim realms of unconsciousness there might be 
mourning when a man bursts from them into the light of this world's 
sun, — above there is rejoicing that a man is bom into that world, as 
we citizens of the earth receive with joy those who are born unto us. 
When I shall one day follow, it will be but joy for me; sorrow shall 
remain in the sphere I shall have left. 

"The world on which but now I gazed with wonder passes away 
from before me and is withdrawn from my sight. With all the full- 
ness of life, order, and increase which I beheld in it, it is yet but the 
curtain by which a world infinitely more perfect is concealed from me, 
and the germ from which that other world shall develop itself. MY 
FAITH looks behind this veil, and cherishes and animates this germ. 

131 



It sees nothin.^ definite, but it awaits more than it can conceive here 
"below, more than it will ever be able to conceive in all time. 

"Thus do I live, thus am I, and thus am I unchang-eable, firm 
and completed for all Eternity; — for this is no existence assumed 
from without, — it is my own true, essential Life and Being." 

JOHANN GOTTLIEB FICHTE. 



132 



my i6t900 



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